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Prologue

And the heavenly messenger said,

Oh, there are eternal things

that you have inklings about.

Little things that come in the night

while your head is on your pillow,

while your eyes shimmer

and dreams fly through your eyes, and you soar,

and your spirit for a moment is freed

from the earthy chains of flesh,

And you glimpse how it could be,

that wonderful, immortal feeling of lightness,

being that celestial body that you are called to be.

You feel it at times in your dreams and daydreams

of how it would be to not be human,

to not be restrained to the earth,

to seep up as a warm vapor into the light air,

lifting off and wheeling this way and that,

and breathing a life

that is the essence and fount of all life,

breathing into eternal lungs

that which breeds immortal thought.

Oh, you have had glimpses.

You have heard whispers from those

who guard you in the night,

from those who breathe into your ear

the precious seeds of immortality.

But then you awake to the bands of a fleshly prison

And soon hunger for things to stuff your face

and things to place your instrument of

eternal seed-bearing into.

You awake from your fine dream that we’ve given you

and then return to grovel in the lie

that you are only animal.

Step One— Wisdom

“And unto man he said, Behold, the fear of the Lord, that is wisdom…” Job 28:28.

fear, n. A feeling of reverential awe, especially toward God. New Century Dictionary.

Chapter 1

Getting Wisdom, The Main Thing

The first step we need to take on the road to immortality is to somehow get wisdom. The scriptures say that “wisdom is the principal thing; therefore get wisdom: and with all thy getting, get understanding.” Proverbs 4:7. With these words, the Spirit is telling us that the absolute main thing that we need to receive is wisdom. We cannot get to God without it. We cannot find Him without it. It is the principal thing! He didn’t say to first get love or peace or go to meetings or tithe or anything of the kind. He said that wisdom is the main thing.

To get into a treasure house literally overflowing with rubies, emeralds, sapphires, diamonds, and gold, all you need—the main thing that you need—is the key that unlocks the door, that opens the way into the treasures. Wisdom is that key.

And so we see that wisdom is that principal thing. It is the key that unlocks the door to the spiritual treasure house of God. Without it we cannot get any further in our quest to receive of His storehouse. We’ve got to get wisdom.

Many people have tried to enter into the vaults of the Supreme Being where His treasures are stored. Many have wanted to explore the unsearchable riches of the Messiah, without wisdom. Many people have tried to clone the Messiah or make temples and buildings to please Him, without wisdom. Mankind sometimes uses interesting but futile chants, hums, repetitions, songs, shouts, “slayings-in-the-spirit” and the like, but the Almighty is not impressed by them. He seeks people to worship Him in Spirit and in truth.

Many have twisted the word “riches” to mean only money: filthy lucre, mammon, riches of this world, wealth that the world and Satan can give (“I’ll give you all the kingdoms of this world if…”) . And yet, Wisdom cries to us in Proverbs 8:18: “Riches and honour are with me; yea, durable riches and righteousness.” The durable riches, those that will last, are with wisdom. And the righteousness that will last and endure is with wisdom, as well. In the end man will be destroyed “that made not God his strength; but trusted in the abundance of his riches…” Psalms 52:7-8.

The true riches

Wisdom says, “Riches and honor are with me.” What riches? We know that it’s not this world’s riches. It’s not money. We are to seek after wisdom

and understanding as we would jewels and gold and silver. What are these true riches that come with wisdom? Paul says in Colossians 2:3 that all of the treasures of wisdom and knowledge are hid in the Savior.

The “true riches,” simply put, is nothing less than the full glorification of many sons and daughters at the culmination of this age. We are talking about immortal offspring walking the face of this earth in the image of the heavenly One who also tread this earth some 2000 years ago.

The Messiah appeared many times to the patriarchs. He walked and communed with Abraham, Sarah, Isaac, Jacob/Israel, Moses, Elijah, and many other prophets before His incarnation almost 2000 years ago. Immortality, communing with the Creator—that is what the true riches are. That is what comes with wisdom. Wisdom is the key that unlocks the door to receive the true riches.

The mystery of the unjust steward

The Savior spoke of the true riches in a parable in Luke l6, the parable of the unjust steward. The manager was wise in that when he found out that he was going to get fired, he cut all the people who owed his boss money a sweet deal. This reduced the amount of debt owed to his boss. It was his last act before his dismissal. And the Master commended him because he had done wisely. Because in worldly money matters, in things not of the Spirit, unrighteous people are wiser than His spiritual little children.

There is a way to handle money wisely and in a righteous manner. We live on earth in earthen vessels. Money buys food and sustenance. We are to be a good and honest caretaker of someone else’s goods. “If you have not been faithful in the unrighteous mammon (riches), who will commit to your trust the true riches? And if you have not been faithful in that which is another man’s, who shall give you that which is your own?” Luke 16.1-12. If we can’t in an honest manner take care of the earthly things like money and goods, then He will not give us the true riches which is our own inheritance. And this inheritance is his nature, his immortality and life within us.

It says that the dishonest manager was wiser in his generation. Sin and dishonesty were generating his actions out from within his corrupt heart. But he had a “wisdom.” There was a wisdom that this dishonest man had that children of the Father do not have. What did he do that was so wise in the unjust realm? He had respect of the power of the rich men that he had to workfor.

If his current boss were going to get rid of him, news would leak out as to why he was being fired. It would soon get around that he was untrustworthy and dishonest. So, he used that same dishonesty to help his employer’s creditors, to discount what they owed to him. This, of course, endeared him to those other rich men, for they had saved money through him. This would help him find a new job with one of them.

The Lord says that we need to be wise in a righteous and honorable way, the way he was wise in a dishonest way. We needto have awe and respect of our boss, the Creator, who is the Father of spirits, so that when the time comes when we are put out of the stewardship of our earthly bodies, He will grant unto us the true riches of immortality and His presence.

Wisdom is the main thing, but what exactly is it? It seems so mystical, so ethereal, so other-worldly. It is just a little bit intimidating and mysterious when you try to figure out what wisdom is according to man’s conception of it. So you go to the scripture of truth and find the definition of it in Job 28:28: “…Behold, the fear of the LORD, that is wisdom; and to depart from evil is understanding.”

I read the words but I’m not much closer in comprehending just what that means. I consult a dictionary and find that “fear” means reverential awe and respect. “Awe” is defined as an emotion of reverence, respect, dread, and wonder inspired as by authority, genius, great beauty, or might. So then, the scripture of truth says that the main thing, the principal thing is to be awestruck, to have this awe and profound respect of our Maker.

When we realize just who He is and how powerful and wonderful He is, then more awe will come over us. Solomon, who had it all as far as worldly riches was concerned, summed it all up in Ecclesiastes 12:13: “Let us hear the conclusion of the whole matter: Fear God and keep His commandments; for this is the whole duty of man.” Be in awe and respect Him and keep his ten commandment law, and you will be doing your duty.

Awe and respect of God—that is wisdom, and that is the key to open the door to God’s heart. But what are we humans in awe of? “Oh, she’s awesome! Oh, he’s awesome!” is heard when a movie star comes on TV plugging their next movie. Hollywood is awesome? Sports stars and music stars of pop and rock are awesome? We humans have sold out to very poor gods who cannot deliver. These movie and music idols offer nothing to their worshippers. But they are modern mankind’s idols. Isn’t it amazing that modern man idolizes personalities who make millions by being something other than what they really are? Our movie idols are phony; they are not real.

Your god is who you are in awe of

Your god is who you are in awe of. Man has it built into his makeup to be in awe of something. It is man’s nature to think that something or someone is awesome. Sometimes it is a star; sometimes it is himself. But man is in awe of something or someone.

To be in awe, then, is the first step in worship. So, it turns out that man is in awe of almost everything except God. Humans will go onto a mountaintop and exclaim how awe-inspiring the view is and how the waterfall in the distance is awesome. Man is in awe of things of the earth and this world. Therefore, man just doesn’t have any true wisdom from above because to be awestruck of Him is wisdom.

How does one get wisdom? “If any of you lack wisdom, let him ask of God, that gives to all men liberally, and upbraids not; and it shall be given him. But let him ask in faith, nothing wavering…” James l: 5-7. Faith is assurance that He will do what he said He will do without you having to see or feel it beforehand. Faith believes and is assured before you receive whatever you ask for. When you waver, you are not totally sure that He will do what He said He would do.

So, we then ask Him for that emotion of being in awe of Him, instead of some worldly figure or thing–and we ask with assurance.

This may sound like a dumb question, but one may wonder just what is He and what has He done to warrant such awe. Go outside on a clear night and count the billions of stars. With the new Hubbel space telescope, the astronomers have reported recently that there are 12 billion galaxies like ours! That’s galaxies like our Milky Way which have hundreds of millions of stars—one of which, of course, is our sun. Now I know why the Great Creator was perplexed by the ancients’ worship of the sun. The sun is small fry—very small potatoes.

We’ve got to get back to the Supreme Power that created all of this flabbergasting universe. And when we begin to get a tiny glimpse of the majesty of this kind of power that created all things, then that’s the beginning of wisdom.

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Chapter 3

How to Receive Wisdom

But as we saw in James 1:5-7, the obtaining of this awe and reverence and respect is tied to our asking Him for it in faith, in full assurance that He will answer our prayer.

Here we have three extremely important concepts inextricably intertwined: wisdom, faith, and prayer. Wisdom is the main thing. And because we all start out lacking it, we need to ask Him for it. Every good and perfect gift comes down from the Father of lights. But we must ask for wisdom in faith, in full assurance in our hearts that God not only hears our request, but also grants our request and gives us awe and respect of him. That is prayer. And it is a lovely circle because when He gives us a bit of awe of Him, then that is a direct answer to our prayer of faith, which in turn gives us more awe (wisdom) of Him. This is a beautiful circle.

James outlines for us in the first chapter some necessary knowledge about wisdom, faith and prayer. First, he is writing to the 12 tribes which are scattered abroad. He then says that it is a necessary thing that our faith be tried (1:2). It will be tried by temptations that come. But we are to look at these temptations as a source of joy because it brings patience into our lives. Patience is that part of His nature (2 Peter 1:4-7) that helps perfect us. She performs a perfect work, if we let her (v.4). Then in the very next verse the apostle says that if any of us lack wisdom or, in other words, if any of you are not letting patience do the work of perfection in you through a lack of awe and respect of Him, then, by all means, ask Him for wisdom in faith, and He will give it to you.

In v.14 we learn that every person is tempted when we are drawn away from that guiding awe of the Supreme Being by some desire that we allow ourselves to go after. And when that lust or desire has conceived it brings forth sin. There was a seed, a thought, a word of desire of something contrary to the Ten Commandments that conceived, and it brings forth the evil fruit of sin, the breaking of the 10 Commandment law of God. And death is the final result of sin.

In verse 16: Don’t err. Don’t make a mistake in what I’m about to write to you, James is saying to us: Every good and perfect gift comes down from above from the Father of lights. We cannot manufacture what it takes to become perfect; we cannot in our own thoughts and work and effort here on earth accomplish the great work that He wants done through each of us who are called with His heavenly calling. It will come down from heaven through prayer, through fearing and being in awe of such a majestically powerful and loving God.

And then, through moving with fear, we can do the deeds that show that we have the faith and assurance that He is living in us and through us.

We need to get wisdom; it is the principal thing. Without it we will not get anywhere on the road to immortality. We must realize that wisdom is to be in awe of the Great One, the One who created billions of galaxies. We realize our need for wisdom, and then simply ask Him as a little child asks his loving parent. The child fully expects the mother or dad to give him what he is asking for. We need to ask our spiritual Father the same way for wisdom. Father, help me to be in awe of You, You who have created all things in this profound universe. Help me to realize just how powerful You are and to respect your ways. Father, will You give me wisdom?

STEP TWO–KNOWLEDGE OF HIS NAME [“The name of Yahweh is a strong tower; the righteous runneth into it and is safe.” Proverbs 18: 10]

Chapter 4 And They Shall Say to Me, What Is His Name?

The quest for immortality is really a search for the knowledge of who the Immortal One, the Creator, is. And there can be no knowledge of who He is without knowing His true name.

Take Moses, for example. The first thing that he was concerned about when called out by God to do a work was knowing God’s name.

Moses had already fled Egypt and was shepherding a flock on Mt. Horeb in the Sinai. It is here that God appears to him out of a burning bush. Moses goes over to get a better look at the marvelous sight. Then God calls Moses by name out of the burning bush.

Moses is dumbfounded, of course. God then tells him just who is speaking. “I am the God of thy father, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob.” And then He tells Moses that He has heard the cries of His people in Egypt, and that He has come down to deliver them out of bondage. “Come now therefore, and I will send you unto Pharaoh, that you may bring forth my people the children of Israel out of Egypt.”

And Moses said in essence, “Why me? Who am I to do such a difficult task?”

And God said, “Certainly I will be with you.”

And Moses said to God, “If I come to the people of Israel and say to them, ‘The God of your fathers has sent me to you,’ and they ask me, ‘What is his name?’ what shall I say to them?” This is the foremost thing, the very first thing that Moses knows the children of Israel will ask him when he goes down to deliver them. Moses knows that if he does not know God’s name, the people will not buy it. They will know that something is wrong with this deliverer. If you know God, Moses, you will surely know His name. If you and God know each other so well that He would be sending you with power to overthrow Pharoah, then surely you are going to know His name (Ex. 3: 10-13).

God then says to Moses, “I AM THAT I AM.” And he said, “Say this to the people of Israel, ‘I AM has sent me to you.’” God also said to Moses, “Say this to the people of Israel, ‘The LORD*…has sent me to you’: this is my name for ever, and thus I am to be remembered throughout all generations.” [*Footnote in the RSV, Exodus 3:15: “The word LORD when spelled with capital letters, stands for the divine name, YHWH, which is here connected with the verb hayah, to be.”]

With this information, we may now restore the divine name into that same passage: “Say this to the people of Israel, ‘YHWH has sent me to you: this is my name for ever.” Stop. God says that YHWH is his name forever. “And thus I am to be remembered throughout all generations.” With this God is saying that He is to be remembered by using the name of YHWH! The word “LORD” appears more than 6,800 times in the Hebrew canon, commonly known as the Old Testament. That means that the Creator’s name YHWH appears about 6,800 times! The prophets addressed Him by His name YHWH. They remembered Him by using His name. The name YHWH was a memorial, the way to remember Him.

Did Moses obey God and tell the children of Israel that “YHWH has sent me to you”? The answer is yes. And afterward Moses and Aaron went in, and told Pharaoh, Thus saith the LORD (YHWH) God of Israel, Let my people go, that they may hold a feast unto me in the wilderness. Ex. 5:1. In fact, Moses penned down the name of YHWH 1,700 times in the first five books of the Scriptures. And the divine name of YHWH appears in most translations as the title, “the LORD.”

Every year here in southwest Missouri in November, an onslaught of hunters converge into the tens of thousands of acres of hardwood forests in hopes of bagging a prize buck. Imagine yourself in the middle of a 2000 acre tract alone in a deer stand. You hear the sounds of other hunting parties, for many have the same thing in mind as you do. You hear the word, “Daddy,” faintly off in the distance, and then it fades into the whisper of the wind in the leaves. You don’t pay it much mind.

I dare say that if you had heard your name coming through those trees, be it ever so faint, it would have gotten your attention. It would have generated thoughts immediately! Who could that be? Is that one of my kids? What are they doing out here? Are they hurt? Do they need me? And chances are that it would have sparked a search for that voice until you had found that person who had called your name.

Are names important? In this scenario a certain name is. The use of our name gets our attention. It could have been anybody’s daddy from anywhere, but when our name is uttered, we perk up.

I can’t help but think of our Father in heaven. We have been made in His likeness, in His image, both physically and emotionally. If our attention is corralled, galvanizing us into a desperate action by the mere mention of our name, could it be that His attention could be gotten in the same manner? Could it be that if only we could call upon the Creator and our Father using His real name, His given name, the name He said was His name forever—would that perk up His ears to our prayers, to our requests, to our cries?

The scriptures say that if we humans know how to give good gifts unto our own children, how much more will the Father give to those who ask Him. If we could respond to a faint cry of our own name in a deep forest, is it a big stretch to believe that the Almighty God, who is Love, could not be moved in His heart by hearing His own name expressed by one of His little ones?

The substitution of titles for YHWH

Now we know His real name. YHWH, pronounced “Yahweh,” is not a new revelation unto man. The name of the God of the Hebrews has been known for many centuries, but the translators have deliberately substituted the titles “LORD” and on occasion “GOD” and “JEHOVAH” for “Yahweh.” This is despite the passage quoted above, “Yahweh is my name forever.”

But Yahweh already knew that men would try to change His name throughout the ages. That’s why He said that it was His name forever and how we will remember Him. His name is His memorial unto all people in all times. You know His real Hebrew name, and you will begin to remember Him. His name Yahweh has been set up from the ancient times as a way for His people to bring Him back into their memories. The Hebrew word for “name” is shem, #8034, meaning “reputation; memory; renoun.” It was sometimes used as a synonym for “memory” (“Name,” Vine’s Expository Dictionary).

Believing in His Name

Just how important is the name of the Supreme Being? “But as many as received Him to them gave He power to become the sons (children) of God, even to them that believe on His name,” (John 1:12).Two major points are to be considered from this passage. First, when we receive Him, we are given authority and power to become the Spirit-Creator’s children. A comma sets off the second part of the verse. It is set up like an appositive, which renames what just went before in the verse. The second part of the verse says, “even to them that believe on his name.”

In other words, those who receive Him are those to whom He gives power and authority to become His offspring. And these are equal to those who believe in His name. His name is very important then. Those believing in it are equated with those who have received Him, who have received His Spirit (“I will come to you,” He says in John, speaking of the Comforter, the Spirit). Those believing in His name are those who are to become His children. The Creator came in human form; the Word was made flesh. “He was in the world, and the world was made by him, and the world knew him not.” He came unto His own people and they did not receive Him. But some will.

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Chapter Chapter 6 Secular Sources Confirm The Name of Yahweh

Sometimes it helps us to hear it from another source, to have it confirmed from an expert. The following is a quote from the Encyclopedia Britannica, Volume 23, 1970 edition, page 867:

“YAHWEH, the proper name of the God of Israel; it is composedof four consonants (YHWH) in Hebrew and is therefore called the tetragrammaton. The name was first revealed to Moses (Ex.3), but the god of Moses was the God of the fathers (Ex.3:6,15), known to the Israelites as El Shaddai (Ex. 6:2-3). In the bible, the name Yahweh is derived from the verbal root “to be,” “to exist,” and means “he who is” (Ex. 3:14 ff.). Other etymologies, suggested by modern scholars, lack cogency: no real parallels have been found in the Egyptian or Babylonian pantheon; a god Yaw in the ancient Canaanite city of Ugarit is poorly attested; and the close links between the Israelites and the Kenites are unlikely to have included the adopting of the Kenite god.

“The origin of the name Yahweh must be sought within Israel itself, and may well be older than the time of Moses, for the Bible speaks of a much earlier institution of his worship (Gen. 4:26), and the first syllable of Jochebed, the name of Moses’ mother, seems to be derived from Yahweh. Possibly the tribe of Levi or the family of Moses already knew the name Yahweh, which may have been originally, in its short form Yah or Yahu, a religious invocation of no precise meaning called forth by the terrible splendour of the holy made manifest. If this is so, Moses did not receive from God a revelation of a new name; instead, a name already familiar was given, in his prophetic experience, a new meaning which thereafter prevailed. But there is no need to reject the derivation of Yahweh from the verb “to be,” for it is supported by occurrences in Babylonian tests of the verbal root ewu (emu) meaning “to be” or “to exist” which also, in the imperfect tense, forms part of proper names such as Yawi-ilu, “the god (ilu) exists (yawu).” The pronunciation of the Hebrew name of God may have varied in antiquity; the accuracy of the form Yahweh is supported by both the etymology in Ex. 3 and the transliteration used by Church Fathers such as Clement of Alexandria.

“When Moses asked God his name, the answer he received, “I AM WHO I AM” (Ex. 3:14), must be understood as a revelation of profound meaning, not as a refusal by God to disclose his true identity. The revelation does not dissolve the mystery that surrounds God, but the passage in Exodus shows that the revelation alone enabled Moses to accomplish his mission. The emphasis lies not simply on God’s existence but on his close and dynamic presence with Moses and his people (Ex. 3:12). This presence and power of God is stressed in the frequent biblical phrase “Yahweh Sabaoth,” “Yahweh of hosts,” those hosts both earthly and heavenly which God uses to establish his sovereignty over Israel, and through Israel over the whole world. The name Yahweh was thus for the faithful Israelite a never-failing source of confidence, power and joy. The ideas of God’s eternity and changelessness, not found in the Exodus passage, are present in later texts (e.g., Isa. 40:28; 41:4; 43:13; 44:6) and became predominant in the Greek versions and in most modern versions.”

Webster’s New World Dictionary of the American Language, 1972 edition, page 1645 has this to say: “Yahweh, [Heb.: see JEHOVAH] God: a form of the Hebrew name in the Old Testament: see TETRAGRAMMATON.”

“Jehovah, [modern transliteration of the Tetragrammaton YHWH; the vowels appear through arbitrary transference of the vowel points of adonai, my Lord],” (page 756).

So we see that Yahweh is a very close rendition of YHWH, much closer than Jehovah, which is a modern appellation of the divine name.

Chapter 7 The Savior’s Original Hebrew Name–What His Mother Called Him

“But as many as received Him, to them He gave the power to become the children of God, to those believing in His Name.” It is difficult to believe in His name if we do not know His real name and what it means.

What name did Mary, the mother of the Messiah use when she would call him into the house for supper when he was growing up in Nazareth? When she and Joseph looked for him those three days during the feast, what name did she use when she asked his whereabouts? “Have you seen my son, _______?” What sound came out of her mouth when she uttered her son’s name?

The New Testament Greek, translated from lost Hebrew Messianic scriptures cite the name “Iesous” as the Savior’s name. “Iesous” was transliterated into the Latin as “Iesus.” This spelling was used as the English spelling until the 17th century. At that time the letter “J” replaced the letter “I” in that name. The letter “J” was non-existent in the English alphabet until 1630.

But what was his Hebrew name? Mary (actual Hebrew name: Miriam) and Joseph were devout descendents of Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Judah, Phares, and on down through King David. The Heavenly Father chose a righteous couple to raise His Son here on earth. “When they had performed all things according to the law of the Lord, they returned into Galilee, to their own city Nazareth.” They lived righteously, living by the Torah, the law. They kept the Passover festival of Yahweh (Luke 2:41).

All of the above goes to show us that Mary/Miriam and Joseph were seriously devoted, righteous people with full knowledge of whose lineage they were of. The Hebrew language was the language that they spoke. The mother of the Messiah would not have called her son “Jesus” or even the Greek “Iesous.” They would not have named that special Son “Iesous” or “Jesus” upon whom all of them (Mary/Miriam, Joseph, Zachariah and Elizabeth and Simeon and the other faithful) had been waiting. There is absolutely no way that she would have called out the front door for the Son of God, “Iesous! Iesous! Come on in the house!” That would have been an absolute abomination unto the Almighty to have called Him that! And she could not have called him by the English name, Jesus.

So what did Mary call her son, the soon to be Savior? What name did she and Joseph give him? It was a name very close to the English name Joshua. Go to Strong’s Concordance and look up the patriarch’s name, Joshua; it is #3091 in the Hebrew. Joshua’s real name in Hebrew when transliterated (when you write it out in English in order to get the Hebrew pronunciation) is Yehowshua, pronounced Yeh-ho-shoo-ah. The “e” is the “uh” sound. The accent is on “shoo.” It has come down to us as Yahshua. The name itself, as is the case with the great majority of Hebrew names, has a specific meaning. It means, “Yah is Savior” or “Yah is Salvation.”

Hebrew names are prophetic

In ancient Hebrew times, much value was placed on the name of a person. A name was symbolical. In other words, the meaning of a name spoke of that person’s character. Biblical names were descriptive and prophetic with much religious significance. “It seems strange to us that at its birth, the life and character of a child should be forecast by its parents in a name.” A good example of this is the following passage in Mt.1:21: “Thou shalt call his name JESUS, for he shall save his people from their sins” (“God, Names of”, International Standard Biblical Encyclopedia).

Looking up the word “JESUS” from the above passage in Strong’s Exhaustive Concordance Dictionary of the Greek Testament, we are referred to #2424 in the Greek: “Iesous; of Hebrew origin [#3091]; Jesus (i.e. Jehoshua), the name of our Lord and two or three other Israelites.”

#3091 in the Strong’s Hebrew Dictionary has this entry: “Yehowshuwa or Yehowshua, from #3068 and 3467: Jehovah saved; Jehoshua (i.e. Joshua).” #3068 is the Hebrew word “YHWH,” the Tetragram- maton, the divine Hebrew name of the Creator. #3467 is “yasha,” meaning “to save” or “savior.”

Consequently, with a little sleuthing, we now see that the Savior’s true name would not be a Greek “Iesous,” later to be Latinized into “Iesus” and then on into the English version “Jesus.” The Savior’s true name would be the same as the Hebrew patriarch Joshua’s name, Yahshua.

Knowing that ancient Hebrew names were prophetic, especially the Savior’s name, the above passage in Matthew proves that His name foretells His character and destiny as being the Savior. “Thou shalt call His name Yahshua, for He shall save His people from their sins.” Joshua, or Yahshua means “Yah is Savior.”

What is His Name? Yahshua. He said, “I am come in my Father’s name.” This is a marvelous thing, for the name of the Father is Yahweh, and in the abbreviated form it is “Yah.”

The King James translators consistently put “LORD” in the Authorized Version in place of the name Yahweh—all except for one place that they overlooked, no doubt by heavenly design. In Psalms 68:4 it says: “Sing unto God, sing praises to his name, extol him that rideth upon the heavens by his name JAH…” “Extol” means to lift up, to praise. The command is to “extol him…by his name JAH (YAH).” Since there was no “J” in English until the 17th century, David is saying in this Hbrew song lyric for us to praise Him by His name YAH! Praise YAH! Hallelu-YAH, which means ‘Praise Yah’ in Hebrew [For more confirmation see the footnote on Psalm 106 in the NIV where the editors even say that it means ‘Praise Yah.’

Yah or Yahweh is the Father’s name. And the Son said, “I am come in my Father’s name. The Father’s name “Yah” was literally a part of the Son’s name. Yah-shua. I know that this is disturbing to some good Christian brethren, for they have never been taught this truth, and it goes seemingly against what their elders have told them since childhood. But we take a stand for the truth. We must study and prove it right or wrong. He said, “Prove all things.” Not just what we believe to be the truth, but things that seem strange to us. What does the word say?

The Father’s name Yah is not in the name Jesus or Iesous. It just is not in there, any way you want to slice it.

And so, to believe in His name is to believe what His name means. It is to believe that YAH-IS-SAVIOR, the Father taking up residence in His Son.

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Chapter 8 Why was the Savior’s Name Changed from Yahshua to Jesus?

Dr. C. J. Koster further explains why and how they changed the Savior’s name in his book, Come out of Her My People, “a factual presentation of well researched material showing exactly which elements in ancient pagan and sun worship were adopted into the Church.” On page 60 we find the chapter entitled, “The Non-original, Substitute Name ‘Jesus,’ Traces Back to Sun-worship Too”:

“There is not a single authoritative reference source which gives the name Jesus or Iesous as the original name of our Saviour! All of them admit that the original form of the Name was Jehoshua or Yehoshua. Why then, was it changed from Jehoshua or Yehoshua to Jesus?

“Many Hebrew names of the Old Testament prophets have been “Hellenized” when these names were rewritten in the Greek New Testament. Thus, Isaiah became Isaias, Elisha became Elissaios or Elisseus (Eliseus), and Elijah became Helias in the Greek New Testament. The King James Version has retained some of these Hellenized names. Since the King James Version was published, the newer English versions have ignored these Hellenized names of the Greek New Testament, and have preferred, quite correctly, to render them as they are found in the Hebrew Old Testament, namely: Isaiah, Elisha, and Elijah.

“Incidentally, the similarity between the Hellenized Helias (instead of Elijah) and the Greek Sun-deity Helios, gave rise to the well-known assimilation of these two by the Church. Dr. A. B. Cook, in his book, Zeus—a Study in Ancient Religion, Vol. I, pp. 178-179, elaborates on this quoting the comments of a 5th century Christian poet and others on this. Imagine it, Elijah identified with Helios, the Greek Sun-deity!

“Returning to ourdiscussion on the reluctance of the translators to persist with all of the Hellenized names in the Greek of the New Testament, one could very well ask: But why did they persist with the Hellenized Iesous of our Saviours’s Name, and its further Latinized form Iesus? It is accepted by all that our Saviour’s Hebrew Name was Jehoshua or Yehoshua. So why did the translators of the Scriptures not retain or restore it, as they did with the names of the Hebrew prophets?

“It is generally agreed that our Saviour’s Name is identical (or very similar) to that of the successor to Moses, Joshua. But “Joshua” was not the name of the man who led Israel into the Promised Land. The Greeks substituted the Old Testament “Yehoshua” with Iesous, the same word they used for our Saviour in the New Testament. Subsequently the Latins came and substituted it with Josue (Iosue) in the Old Testament (which became Josua in German and Joshua in English), but used Iesus in the New Testament.

“In the Hebrew Scriptures we do not find the word “Joshua.” In every place it is written: Yehoshua. However, after the Babylonian captivity we find the shortened form “Yeshua” in a few places—shortened, because they then omitted the second and third letters namely: WH. Everyone who sees the names Yehoshua and Iesous will agree: there is no resemblance between the names Yehoshua and Iesous or Jesus.

“Before we continue with our study of the words Iesous and Iesus, we would like to point out that we have been led to believe that the Saviour’s correct Name is: Yahushua. Our Saviour said in John 5:43, “I have come in My Father’s Name.” Again, in John 17:11 He prayed to His Father, “Keep them through Your Name which You have given Me.” According to the Nestle-Aland Greek New Testament, the United Bible Societies’ Third Edition, and the Majority Text. Therefore, in John 17:11 our Saviour states that His Father’s Name had been given to Him. Again he repeats this irrefutable fact in the next verse, John 17:12, “In your Name which You gave Me. And I guarded them (or it).” Read John 17:11-12 in any of the modern English versions.

“So we have our Saviour’s clear words, in three texts, that His Father’s Name was given to Him. Paul also testifies to this in Eph.3:14-15 as well as in Phil.2:9. What then is His Father’s Name? Although most scholars accept “Yahweh,” and many still cling to the older form “Yehowah” (or Jehovah), we are convinced that the correct form is Yahuweh.

“Two factors contributed greatly to the substitution and distortion of our Saviour’s Name. The first was the un-Scriptural superstitious teaching of the Jews that the Father’s Name is not to be uttered, that it is ineffable, that others will profane it when they use it, and that the Name must be “disguised” outside of the temple of Jerusalem.

“Because of the Father’s Name being in His Son’s Name, this same disastrous suppression of the Name resulted in them giving a Hellenized, in fact, a surrogate name for our Saviour. He did warn us in John 5:43, “I have come in My Father’s Name…if another comes in his own name, him you will receive.”

“The second factor was the strong anti-Judaism that prevailed amongst the Gentiles, as we have already pointed out. The Gentiles wanted a saviour, but not a Jewish one. They loathed the Jews, they even loathed the Elohim of the Old Testament. Thus, a Hellenized saviour was preferred. The Hellenized theological school at Alexandria, led by the syncretizing, allegorizing, philosophying, Gnostic-indoctrinated Clement and Origen, was the place where everything started to become distorted and adapted to suit the Gentiles. The Messianic Belief, and its Saviour, had to become Hellenized to be acceptable to the Gentiles.

“Where did Iesous and Iesus come from? In Bux and Schone, Worter-buch der Antike, under “Jesus,” we read, “JESUS: really named Jehoshua.Iesous (Greek), Iesus (Latin) is adapted from the Greek, possibly from the name of a Greek healing goddess Ieso (Iaso).

“Like all authoritative sources, this dictionary admits to the real true Name of our Saviour: Jehoshua (or as we believe: Yahushua). It then states, as most others, that the commonly known substitute, non-original, non-real name “Jesus” was adapted from the Greek. We must remember that our Saviour was born from a Hebrew maiden, not from a Greek one. His stepfather, His half-brothers and half-sisters, in fact all His people, were Hebrews…Furthermore, this dictionary then traces the substitute name back to the Latin Iesus, and the Greek Iesous. It then traces the origin of the name Iesous back as being possibly adapted from the Greek healing goddess Ieso (Iaso).

“To the uninformed I would like to point out that Iaso is the usual Greek form, while Ieso is from the Ionic dialect of the Greeks.

“This startling discovery of the connection between Ieso (Iaso) and Iesous, is also revealed to us by the highly respected and authoritative unabridged edition of Liddell and Scott, Greek-English Lexicon, p. 816, under “Iaso.”

“The third witness comes to us in a scholarly article by Hans Lamer in Philologische Wochenschrift, No. 25, 21 June 1930, pp. 763-765. In this article the author recalls the fact of Ieso being the Ionic Greek goddess of healing. Hans Lamer then postulates, because of all the evidence, that “next to Ieso man shaped a proper masculine Iesous. This was even more welcome to the Greeks who converted to Christianity.” He then continues, “If the above is true, then the name of our Lord which we commonly use goes back to a long lost form of the name of a Greek goddess of healing. But to Greeks who venerated a healing goddess Ieso, a saviour Iesous must have been most acceptable. The Hellenisa- tion was thus rather clever.”

“This then is the evidence of three sources who, like us, do not hide the fact of the Greek name Iesous being related to Ieso, the Greek goddess of healing. The Hellenization of our Saviour’s Name was indeed most cleverly done. To repeat our Savour’s words or warning in John 5:43, “I have come in My Father’s Name, and you do not receive Me; if another comes in his own name, him you will receive.”

“There is no resemblance or identifiability between our Saviour’s Name, Yahushua, and the Greek substitute for it Iesous. The Father’s Name, Yah- or Yahu-, cannot be seen in the Greek Iesous or in the Latin Iesus, neither in the English or German Jesus.

“In spite of attempts made to justify the “translating” of the Father’s Name and His Son’s Name, the fact remains: A personal name cannot be translated! It is simply not done. The name of every single person on this earth remains the same in all languages. Nobody would make a fool of himself by calling Giuseppe Verdi by another name, Joseph Green, even though Giuseppe means Joseph and Verdi means Green. Satan’s name is the same in all languages. He has seen to it that his name has been left unmolested!
“However, let us further investigate the names Ieso (Iaso) and Iesous. According to ancient Greek religion, Apollo, their great Sun-deity, had a son by the name of Asclepius, the diety of healing, but also identified with the Sun. This Asclepius had daughters, and one of them was Iaso (Ieso), the Greek goddess of healing. Because of her father’s and grandfather’s identities as Sun-deities, she too is in the same family of Sun-deities. Therefore, the name Iesous, which is derived from Ieso, can be traced back to Sun-worship.

“We find other related names, all of them variants of the same name, Iasus, Iasion, Iasius, in ancient Greek religion, as being sons of Zeus. Even in India we find a similar name Issa or Issi, as surnames for their deity Shiva. Quite a few scholars have remarked on the similarity between the names of the Indian Issa or Issi, the Egyptian Isis and the Greek Iaso.

“In our research on the deity Isis we made two startling discoveries. The one was that the son of Isis was called Isu by some. However, the second discovery yielded even further light. The learned scholar of Egyptian religion, Hans Bonnet, reveals to us in his Reallexikon der agyptischen Religionsgeschichte, p. 326, that the name of Isis appears in the hieroglyphic inscriptions as ESU or ES. No wonder it has been remarked, “Between Isis and Jesus as names, confusion could arise.” This Isis also had a child, which was called Isu by some. This Isu or Esu sounds exactly like the “Jesu” that we find the Saviour called, in the translated Scriptures of many languages, e.g. many African languages.

“Rev. Alexander Hislop, The Two Babylons, p.164, also remarked on the similarity of Jesus and Isis. “IHS—Iesus Hominum Salvator—But let a Roman worshipper of Isis (for in the age of the emperors there were innumerable worshippers of Isis in Rome) cast his eyes upon them, and how will he read them, of course, according to his own well-known system of idolatry: Isis, Horus, Seb.” He then continues with a similar example of “skillful planning” by “the very same spirit, that converted the festival of the Pagan Oannes into the feast of the Christian Joannes.” (The Hebrew name of the baptizer, and that of the apostle as well, was Yochanan, or Yehochanan).

“Thus, by supplanting the Name of our Saviour Yahushua with that of the Hellenized Iesous (in capitals: IHSOUS), which became the Latinized Iesus, it was easy to make the pagans feel welcome—those pagans who worshipped the Greek Ieso (Iaso), of which the masculine counterpart is Iesous, as well as those who worshipped the Egyptian Esu (Isis)…

“As I have stated, there is no resemblance between the Name Yahushua and the name Jesus. Neither is there any resemblance between their meanings. Yahushua means: “the Salvation of Yah or Yahu.” “Jesus” is derived from Iesus, derived from Iesous (IHSOUS), obviously derived from the Greek goddess of healing, Ieso or Iaso…Further the short form, or original source of the name Iesous (IHSOUS) is Ies (HIS), the very surname of Bacchus, the Sun-deity.

“Therefore, the two names differ completely in their origin, and in their meaning. And more important: Our Saviour’s Name contains the Name of His Father, which the substitute name does not.”

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Dr. Koster’s book Come out of Her My People can be ordered at this address: Institute for Scripture Research/ 545 Newport Avenue #151/ Pawtucket, RI 02861

One of the most trite and worn-out expressions in the English language is “in His name.” What does it really mean? All through our Christian walk to date we have uttered that phrase or a variation of it. “In the name of Jesus.” “In the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit.”

We learned, of course, to say these phrases watching and listening to others. We have sincerely believed that it was important to say them. We ended most every prayer that we’ve ever prayed with a form of “in His name.” We have recited it almost as an incantation, as if it had magical qualities that would bring healing and comfort. “In His Name” has become for us a verbal talisman swinging from our lips, knowing that somehow, if we do not say these special words, our prayers will not get through. In saying these words, we were doing the best we could; we were walking in the light that we had.

Now let us investigate and study these three words in a new light. “In His name…” In, inside, within the true name. He is pointing us to go into His name. Take His name, Yahshua, and go into that name and extract the meaning from it.

As we have already seen, the Savior’s true name is Yahshua. This name means literally, “Yah is salvation” or “Yah is Savior.” But to all who received him, who believed in His name, He gave power to become the children of God. John 1:12, RSV.Here, “receiving Him” and “believing in His name” are synonymous.

A message in His name to be believed

“Believing in His name” implies that there is a message to be believed, a truth inherent in His name. We have seen that Hebrew names are prophetical. We have seen that the Savior was named Yahshua because “he shall save His people from their sins.” And Yahshua means “Yah is Savior.” So what is the message contained within His name? That message is “Yah is the Savior.” The name “Jesus” has no message in it at all. It does not have any meaning.

But the name “Yahshua” is loaded with meaning. Inside that name is the meaning and efficacy needed to bring a person into the Spirit of the Father and to bring the Spirit into the person. “Believing in His name…” The children receive the Spirit by believing in what His name means (by believing in His name). We believe the meaning of His name—that Yahweh or Yah, the Eternal Spirit, came down to earth and poured His essence into a specially set apart human form to sacrifice Himself so that we could take on His spiritual nature. That is believing in His name, Yahshua, which is receiving what His name really means—YAH-IS-SAVIOR. For I am Yahweh thy God, the Holy One of Israel, thy Saviour…I, I am Yahweh, and besides Me there is no savior…Verily thou art a God that hidest thyself, O God of Israel, the Saviour. Isa. 43:3, 11; 45:15.

Yes, Yah did hide Himselfwell in a flesh body some 2000 years ago. But He makes it very clear from the above passages in Isaiah that He is the Savior; He is the Creator. The apostle John makes it very clear that the Spirit-filled human flesh body that he had walked with for three and a half years did the creating. In the beginning was the Word…All things were made by him; and without him was not any thing made that was made…He was in the world, and the world was made by him, and the world knew him not…And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us…John 1:1, 3, 10, 14.

Believing what His name means

There is no contradiction here. Yah did the creating, the forming, the redeeming and the saving. And Yah, clothed in human flesh, took the name “Yahshua,” Yah-Is-Savior. The very name of the Messiah points to the fact that it is the Father Yahweh who is doing the saving. Yah was in that vessel, the Messiah, reconciling the world unto Himself. The Spirit, Yah, pours Himself into His temple and works out of it to the world.

When a person believes in the name of Yahshua, he is believing what that name means—that Yah is the Savior in human form. In fact, the act of believing in the name of Yahshua is a miniature of the Creator’s plan of kingdom redemption.

If one has really received Him, that person will have believed in His name, which is to say, will have believed that the Father Yah was in human form, and that combination, Yahshua, is bringing salva- tion to the world.

Believing in Him is believing in His name

He who believes in Him is not condemned; he who does not believe is condemned already, because he has not believed in the name of the only Son of God. John 3:18. When one does not believe in the Messiah, he is not believing in the meaning of His name. For He said, “He that rejects Me, rejects Him that sent Me.” If you reject the Son, you are rejecting the Father that dwells within the Son, for that is exactly where the Father Yahweh is. “Know ye not that I am in the Father and the Father is in me?” He asked.

The unbeliever in the Messiah is already judged for one reason: he has not believed in the Name of Yahshua, which is saying that Yah was not in him, saving mankind through His death, burial, and resurrection. Not believing in Messiah’s name, then, is equal to not receiving the Spirit of the Creator.

Not believing in the meaning of the name of Yahshua is equal to rejecting the light that is come into the world, and cleaving unto darkness, saying, I have no need for Yah in human form to save me (see John 3:19).

The phrase “in the name,” then, has profound meaning and carries a weighty message. First, we cannot believe in His name if we do not know His name. If we seek, He will reveal to us His true name. This knowledge, in turn, is an important key that will unlock the door that is keeping us from continuing our journey down the road to immortality.

The Savior’s name is Yahshua, Yah-Is-Savior. To believe in His name is to believe what His name actually means: Yahweh, the self-existent One that cried through Isaiah, who appeared and spoke to Noah, Abraham, Moses, and many others, offered up His perfect human incarnation and became the Author of eternal salvation for His people.

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Chapter 10 Lessons in His Love–Miracles, Protection, and Love

Knowing His Hebrew name opens up many wonderful realms to us. The power to perform miracles and do mighty works, the ability to show forth His astounding love, the unifying factor for the whole body of true believers–all these things and more open to us with the key of the knowledge of His name.

In John 10: 22-39, Yahshua said that the works (the miracles) that He was doing in His Father’s name testify as to His Messiahship. The Jews approached Him in winter during Hanukkah, the Feast of Dedication. The Messiah was walking in Solomon’s porch. They were accusing Him of making them to doubt as to whether He was the Messiah or not. “If you are the Messiah, tell us plainly.”

He then said that He had already told them, and they had not believed him. “My deeds done in my Father’s name are my credentials” (NEB). The miracles that I do in My Father’s name, He was saying, speak for Me, testify on My behalf that I am the Messiah.

And then He explained why they did not believe Him. “But you do not believe because you are not of my sheep, as I said to you. My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow Me” (v. 26-27, NKJV). They were not the people “whom He foreknew and had predestinated to be conformed to the image of His Son.” It was not given to them from heaven to believe in the Messiah. Their names were not written in heaven–(“Rejoice not that the devils are subject to you, but rather rejoice that your names are written in heaven…”). The Pharisees could not believe Him, for they were not of His sheepfold. But his sheep believe Him and He gives them “eternal life, and they shall never perish; neither shall anyone snatch them out of My hand. My Father, who has given them to Me, is greater than all; and no one is able to snatch them out of My Father’s hand. I and My Father are one” (v. 28-30, NKJV). Messiah’s hand was the Father’s hand, for they are one.

That did it for the Jews. They just could not see it that the Messiah and the Father are one. They picked up stones to kill Him. Messiah said to them, “I’ve done many miracles in you midst. Which one are you stoning Me for?”

“We are not stoning you for any of these,” replied the Jews, “but for blasphemy, because you, a mere man, claim to be God.” They just could not see that God was inside of the man, the mortal shell, and was doing the miracles.

Under great stress Yahshua continued to rain love upon the unjust. Look, He was saying, “is not it written in your law, in the book of Psalms, ‘I have said, You are gods.’ If He called them gods unto whom the word of God came, what about the one whom the Father set apart as his very own and sent into the world? Why then do you me of blasphemy because I said, I am God’s Son? Don’t believe Me unless I do what my Father does. But if I do it, even though you do not believe me, believe the miracles, that you may know and understand that the Father is in me, and I in the Father” (v. 34-38, NIV). By believing the miracles, we may know and understand that the Father is in the Son doing those miracles. The Son can only do what He sees the Father do.

His Name brings unity

In the Son of God’s prayer of intercession in John 17, He stresses the importance of the name of His Father. He says in v. 6: “I have revealed You Name to the men whom You gave Me out of the world. They were Yours, and You gave them to Me, and they have guarded Your Word.” He made known the name of His Father, Yahweh, to His called-out ones. And in verse 11, the Messiah asks that the Father “guard them in Your Name which You have given Me, so that they might be one, as We are.” We see that the name of Yahweh is a shield and protection needed so that they, the disciples, the children of God, might be one, as the Father and Son are one! Guard them in Your Name. His name has protective powers for us. Us being under the banner of the name of Yahweh preserves us until we all are one as the Father and Son are one–“till we all come to the unity of the faith, unto a perfect man.”

And in verse 26, Christ says, “And I have made Your name known to them, and shall make it known, so that the love with which You love Me might be in them, and I in them.” At least three major points are made here. First, the Son reveals the Father to whomsoever He will by revealing the Father’s name to them. He told them that Yahweh was the name of the Father.

He then said, “And shall make it known…” He is giving prophecy here. He will make the Father’s name known once again to His followers–to a select people to whom it is given in these last days.

Third point: I have made your name known “so that the love with which You love Me might be in them, and I in them.” The revealing of the Father’s true name is so important that it is a pre-requisite; it is a necessary thing that must take place before that same love with which the Father had loved the Son might be in us. Making His name known is necessary to others so that the Spirit of the Son will come down and be in His followers! “So that the love with which You love Me might be in them, and I in them.” That is why knowing and declaring His name Yahweh is so important! [And yet, no preacher stands in the tens of thousands of pulpits across this world and teaches this! Why?]

What we have here then is the key to the Father’s love that He loved the Son with! He’ll make his Father’s name known to His disciples and show them how it is a “strong tower” and a keeper and a guard for us, allowing us to eventually tap into the Father’s unfathomable love. “Father, keep through thine own name those whom thou hast given me, that they may be one, as we are.”

All this then would indicate that our Father’s name Yahweh is our unifying attribute. Our Father’s name is now our name; children are given their father’s surname. We then look forward to the time when we by the thousands walk with Him in white and He in us and we in Him, and the Father in you all. The Holy Spirit will someday fill us, His temple, when we have no sensation that we are there anymore, and He will dwell in us fully. All of our ego foibles and mortal earthly thoughts will be at last swept from His temple, which is our bodies, and something greater than the temple will be here, and we will no longer glory in that we are the temple of God. We will not think and strive as a blade of grass and as the potsherd we are today. We will sit still and know that He is the great Yahweh of old, and He will move mightily through His temple. And many will look on us and think that we have done something grand, and we will say, “Someone much greater that I is here.”

How were the miracles done? How will the unity come? In the Father’s name, Yahweh.

“And this is life eternal, that they may know thee the only God” (John 17: 3).

“I know thee who thou art, the Holy One of God.” Mark 1:24.

Chapter 11 Knowing Him As He Really Is—The Definition of Immortality

We are well down the road to immortality now. We have learned that wisdom is being in awe of God. It is the first step; it is the main thing, for it is the first key that begins to unlock the treasure house of God’s knowledge. Without this awe of Him we won’t get anywhere. Then we took step two, knowing His name. Moses got some wisdom, some awe of God, at the burning bush, and then he had to know His name. It was a crucial step, to know God’s true name Yahweh.

And now we have come to our third step: Knowledge of Who He Really Is. The farther we go down this road that leads to immortality, the more is at stake. We cannot turn back now; our own hopes of transcending a certain death hangs on our stead-fastness and perseverance at this time. Immortality, the elixir that our mortal mouths must drink, is the knowledge of who God really is. This knowledge is the key to unlock the secrets of eternal life. We have arrived at nothing less than the information that will catapult us over this valley of the shadow of death. Now this is eternal life: that they may know you, the only true God, and Yahshua the Messiah, whom you have sent. John 17:3. NIV.

Our hopes for arriving at immortality hinge on how well we really know Him—how well we really know His nature, His essence, His Deity, His Godhead. For us, eternal life depends on whether we really know Him as He really is. We must straighten out misconceptions of who He is and how He is.

Those of us on this road to immortality must realize that only He can grant us true knowledge of Himself. It will not come through man’s conception of who and how He is. We must believe upon Him in true knowledge “as the scripture has said,” the way the scriptures really portray Him.

But that, of course, is the problem. We all have our own conception of Him. We think that we have just “come up with it,” but we have received our personal conception of God through what we have been taught by other human beings that we have come in contact with. It really gets tricky when people have studied out minutely different denominational doctrines, and even though they have “come out” of that organization, they cling tenaciously to its teachings—teachings about who He is.

The Savior, 2000 years ago, standing before them in a human flesh body, told them that they were searching the scriptures. They thought that eternal life was contained in those scriptures of truth. But, as the Master was pointing out, the very writings

that they thought would yield immortality for them were the very writings that spoke of Him—the One that they were rejecting! You diligently study the Scriptures because you think that by them you possess eternal life. These are the Scriptures that testify about me, yet you refuse to come to me to have life. John 5:39-40, NIV…You study the scriptures diligently, supposing that in having them you have eternal life: yet, although their testimony points to me, you refuse to come to me for that life. NEB.

They were studying the scriptures diligently, thinking that immortality would be derived through them. What writings were they studying that spoke about the Messiah, the Savior? What scriptures existed then? They were the books commonly referred to as the Old Testament. Now Yahshua, the Savior, said that those old books written by the prophets of ancient Israel, those old books spoke about HIM!

The prophets spoke and wrote about the Savior by His very Spirit within them

Let’s go, then, to the prophets where they speak about the Messiah, specifically using the word “Savior.” He just said in John 5 that the scriptures do testify of Him, so let us go there and see for ourselves what they are saying. Now Peter tells us that the spirit that was in those prophets was the Spirit of the Savior, Yahshua the Anointed One. And they spoke and wrote down with the Spirit of Yahshua about this immortality, this salvation from a certain death. This salvation was the theme which the prophets pondered and explored, those who prophesied about the grace of God awaiting you. They tried to find out what was the time, and what the circumstances, to which the spirit of Christ in them pointed. I Peter 1:10-11, NEB.

The Spirit of Messiah, which was in Isaiah the prophet said this: But now thus saith Yahweh (the LORD) that created thee, O Jacob, and he that formed thee, O Israel…For I am Yahweh thy God, the Holy One of Israel, thy Savior. Isa. 43:1,3.

Several important points emerge from this passage that are vital for our understanding of His essence, which in turn is vital for our obtaining immortality. First, the Spirit of Christ that was in Isaiah said that He was Yahweh! Thus saith Yahweh…I am Yahweh. When the prophets wrote down the words, “Thus saith Yahweh,” they were saying that Yahweh is speaking through me the following words. Yahweh is speaking thusly. Yahweh, the Father, the Creator, the Supreme Being is using me by speaking through me! Oh, to be used that way, the way He used the prophets!

Second, the Spirit of Christ is saying that He created and formed Jacob/ Israel. John confirms this. All things were made by him; and without him was not any thing made that was made. John 1:3. Paul confirms this as well. For by him were all things created, that are in the heaven, and that are in the earth, visible or invisible…Col. 1:16.

Third, I am Yahweh thy God, the Holy One of Israel…The Spirit of the Messiah speaking through Isaiah now says that He is Yahweh, that He is one God and that He is Israel’s Holy One (the whole House of Israel or the 12 tribes of Jacob/Israel).

Fourth, the Spirit of the Messiah, God’s Spirit, Yahweh, breathing and speaking through Isaiah says, I am thy Savior…I, even I, am Yahweh; and beside me there is no saviour. Isa.43: 3, 11. Here Yahweh, which is the Spirit that was in the Messiah, says clearly that He is the Savior and that there is no other savior! Yahweh, then, was inside the man Yahshua who was called the Savior, for Yahweh says that there is no other savior except Him. We trust in the living God, who is the Saviour of all men, specially of those who believe. I Tim. 4:10. God was in Christ (the Anointed One) reconciling the world unto Himself. II Cor. 5:19. It was Yahweh in the man who was the Savior. Or, in other words, Yahweh-in-human-form is the Savior.

Bottom line: the same Spirit that spoke through the prophets, that created Jacob/Israel and everything else, this Great Spirit God dwelt bodily in the man Yahshua the Messiah. His name Yahshua means “Yah-Is-Savior.” It was Yahweh of old, the Yahweh of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob/Israel, the Yahweh of Moses, David, and all the prophets— that same Yahweh came down, leaving His spirit-body dimension. And He came to earth in a flesh and blood human body, walked in our midst doing good and healing all that were oppressed of the devil. And in due time, He laid down that human body, yielded it up to a sacrificial death, and raised that body in three days to life again, so that we could be restored to His original plan of reproducing Himself.

Chapter 12 Moses Wrote about Christ–How “He Opened unto Us the Scriptures”

Let’s take a little quiz at this time. Moses wrote the first five books of the Bible, the torah. He penned down many proper nouns, which are names of particular persons, places and things. Now the question: Which proper noun did he write down over 1,700 times in the first five books of the Bible?

Answer: Yahweh. He wrote the proper noun Yahweh down hundreds and hundreds of times. Yahweh in the Garden of Eden. Yahweh at the Tower of Babel. Yahweh communing with Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. Yahweh face to face with Moses himself. And many more appearances.

And we learned in Chapter 11 that the Pharisees were searching the scriptures, which included the law and the prophets, or Moses’ writings and the writings of the prophets. The Messiah continues on confronting their unbelief. He tells them that they are hinging all their hopes onto the sayings and writings of Moses, and they are rejecting Him. And the irony is that Moses wrote about Yahweh, the Savior. He wrote about the very One that the Phar-isees had written off. “But do not think I will accuse you before the Father. Your accuser is Moses, on whom your hopes are set. If you believed Moses, you would believe me, for he wrote about me. But since you do not believe what he wrote, how are you going to believe what I say?” John 5:45-47.

He was telling them, You believe what Moses wrote when you believe what I say. Just that simple, for He wrote about Me! Every type and shadow points to Me, Yahweh-in-human-form! The Master is speaking about the hardest unbelief there is—not believing that it is Yahweh dwelling within His human form. They did not believe Moses; they said they did, but they had deceived themselves in their own concepts of what Moses was saying in the torah. Moses wrote of me. Moses wrote down Yahweh’s name 1,700 times! That’s how much Moses wrote of the Savior. The revelation is this: Moses wrote about Yahweh, who is the same Spirit that dwelt fully in Yahshua, the Messiah.

How the scriptures will open

The Master mentions Moses’ writings again. After His resurrection He joins two of His followers walking dejectedly down the road to a village named Emmaus. They were prevented from recognizing Him as they spoke. He asked them what they were so down about. And they basically said that the prophet they had been following had been killed by the chief priests and rulers. And besides, it had been three days now and they had not seen hide nor hair of him.

And then He said this unto them. How foolish you are, and how slow of heart to believe all that the prophets have spoken! Did not the Messiah have to suffer these things and then enter his glory? And beginning with Moses and all the Prophets, he explained to them what was said in all the Scriptures concerning himself. Luke 24:25-27. He has just said that all of the writings of Moses and the prophets were writings about Himself. And we know that they wrote of Yahweh.

What Moses and all the prophets were writing about was Yahweh’s glorious coming to this earth in a flesh body to become the Savior of His creation. That’s what the scriptures are about! That is what the Master just said.

The Master, to finish the story, went on to the next village with them. Still not recognizing Him, they encouraged Him to stay with them and eat. During the meal they finally recognized Him, and then He disappeared. Then they asked each other, “Were not our hearts burning within us while he talked with us on the road and opened the Scriptures to us?” Luke 24:32. The scriptures open when we realize that they speak of Yahweh coming in human form!

Many do not understand and therefore do not read the Bible because it is closed to them. He will open the scriptures to us just like He did to those two on the road to Emmaus, when we believe that Yahweh of the “Old Testament” is clothed in human flesh and is really the Messiah of the “New Testament.” {The previous sentence will only be revealed to us if He opens the scriptures to us—if He shows us who He really is.}

Step Three that we are taking is obtaining the knowledge of what the essence of the Godhead truly is. We absolutely must know in a fuller way just who the true Supreme being is. We may think that we already know who He is, yet Paul says that godliness is a great mystery. If “few there be that find this way of truth,” then where does that leave the countless hundreds of millions of professing Christians who can’t agree on anything? Which “few” amongst the hundreds of millions are right?

We can sit tight thinking we have a pat hand when it comes to the knowledge of who He is, or we can remain open to further revelation. The former is truly dangerous, for if we think we have arrived and have not, and seek no further, we just may come up short. If we remain open, however, then even if we have all knowledge of Him, we cannot be hurt.

The Savior Yahshua said in John 7:37: “He that believes upon Me, as the scripture has said (the way that the written word really portrays the Savior), out of his belly shall flow rivers of living water.” The next verse states that He was talking about the Spirit that believers would receive after He was glorified. The Spirit just doesn’t come and manifest Himself if we have not believed on Yahshua the way the scripture has said that He really is. Then the Spirit will make Himself known, flowing and gushing out from within our innermost being like a mighty river. But we must know Him as He is truly portrayed in the scriptures. Those of us who do not come to the full truth of what He is like, who He is, and how He operates, will not have the privilege of the Spirit streaming out of our mouths, pouring out salvation unto this troubled world. We must seek to find out who He really is.

We look to Yahshua to tell us truthfully about the Father, for grace and truth came by Him. He shared some major truth about the true nature and worship of the Father in John 4 to the Samaritan woman at Jacob’s well. He asked her for a drink. When she hesitated because He was not from those parts, He said that if you knew who was asking you for a drink, you would have been asking Him for the rivers of living water, the Spirit. You would have asked…v. 10. He thought that she should have known that one needs to ask, and it shall be given. He modeled that behavior of “asking” by requesting a drink of her. He was thinking that if she really knew God, how He operates, then she would have asked of Him, and she would have received the Spirit, the living water. And once having drunk of the Spirit, it would have grown into “a fountain of water springing up into everlasting life” (v. 14). It would have eventually led to immortality.

She then gives fleshly, conventional, non-spiritual wisdom as to the way man worships God. She says that her family has always been _________________ (you fill in the denomination, religion, organization, or affiliation). And we’ve always worshipped this way. Our fathers worshipped on this mountain. V. 20. “Mountain” denotes a physical location, place, or situation. You say that in Jerusalem is the place where men ought to worship. Again, we see a division into two camps, two traditions, two physical locations, two dogmas. Both are utterly devoid of spiritual truth; both are looking on the temporary fleshly things of man’s concept of worshipping and not His true way of worshipping Him.

The Savior then straightens her out and tells her that the Father is not worshipped in either geographical location. In fact, “you worship what you do not know,” but we know what we worship, for the truth was delivered to Jacob/Israel (v. 21-22; Psm. 149:19). “True worshippers shall worship the Father in spirit and in truth, for the Father also does seek such to worship Him (23).” The Father, we now find out, is the one to worship (“We know what we worship…true worshippers shall worship the Father…”). The Father is seeking and searching for someone to worship Him in spirit and in truth. He is aching for someone to cut through all the garbage of false concepts and truly know who He is.

God is Spirit

In His very next breath Yahshua lets us know more fully who the Father is. God (Elohim) is Spirit, and those who worship Him must worship in spirit and in truth. 4:24, NEB. Wait a minute. In verse 23 it is the Father who is worthy of worship and is seeking true spiritual worshippers. Now in this verse Yahshua tells us that God is Spirit and we need to worship this Spirit in a true spiritual manner. Therefore, the One who we should worship is the Father, who is God the Supreme Being, who is Spirit. THE FATHER=GOD=SPIRIT.

Now we have established that the Father is God and that He is Spirit. Yahshua the Messiah is the image, the likeness of the invisible Spirit/God, who is the Father. And all fullness and all completeness of the Spirit (God) dwelt bodily in Yahshua. For it pleased the Father that in him should all fullness dwell. Col. 1:19. Fullness and completeness is all there is. Therefore, all of the Godhead resided in the Messiah. All the fullness of Deity was there inside of him. God (the Spirit), who is the Father, dwelt bodily in Yahshua. For in him dwelleth all the fullness of the Godhead bodily. Col. 2:9.

“Fullness” is defined as the state of being complete or full. The fullness of a gallon of milk is exactly 128 ounces. If the fullness of that gallon is poured into another container, then all of that gallon is in the other container. There is not any more anywhere else. All of the Godhead was in the Messiah. Yahweh, the Spirit/God of the Hebrews was in the Messiah. That is what made Yahshua the Messiah—all the Godhead/Spirit/Father—dwelling bodily within.

“For there is one God,” who is invisible, who is our Savior, and one mediator between this invisible Spirit-Father-God and men: Yahshua the Messiah. Now unto the King eternal, immortal, invisible, the only wise God be honour and glory for ever and ever. Amen…For this is good and acceptable in the sight of God our Saviour…For there is one God, and one mediator between God and men, the man Yahshua Messiah. I Tim. 1:17; 2:3, 5.

And this God, the Spirit-Father, “was in Messiah, reconciling the world unto Himself.” II Cor. 5:19. Yahshua is the mediator [#3316, mesites, a go between, a mediator = one who stands between two sides, who is the medium for conciliation between the two]. The two here are Spirit and man. That is why God (Elohim), who is the Father and Spirit, poured Himself fully into a human vessel, and that Lamb “through the eternal Spirit offered Himself without spot to God” and thus cleansed our consciences so that we could serve and worship Him in spirit and in truth.

The central revelation of scripture is that Yahweh of the old books came in human form as Yah-Is-Savior or Yahshua, known to the world as Jesus Christ. To further prove this, we need only go to the Messiah’s forerunner, John the Baptist. Everyone knows that John came in the spirit and power of Elijah and pointed the multitudes to the Messiah.

We learned earlier that the Spirit of the Messiah was in the prophets. His Spirit speaks through them. The voice of John was crying in the wilderness telling the people to prepare Yahweh’s way in the earth. “The voice of him that cries in the wilderness, Prepare ye the way of the LORD, make straight in the desert a highway for our God.” Isaiah 40: 3. We definitely know that this is speaking of John the Baptist because Matthew quotes this passage in his gospel. “For this is he that was spoken of by the prophet Isaiah, saying, The voice of one crying in the wilderness, Prepare ye the way of the Lord, make his paths straight. 3: 3.

Examining this we see that John was saying for them to prepare “the way of the LORD.” Matthew quotes Isaiah who wrote down the original prophecy that John would fulfill. We have already proven above that “the LORD” is the title that the translators chose to substitute for “Yahweh,” the Hebrew name of God. Yahweh is, in fact, the very name of the Creator, our Maker, the Ruler of heaven and earth (see above in Ex. 3: 15 where Moses was told that Yahweh was His “name forever and is my memorial unto all generations”). Now let us read this passage that John was fulfilling again: “Prepare ye the way of Yahweh (the LORD).

John the Baptist, when he fulfilled this prophecy in Isaiah, knew perfectly well who was arriving on the scene. He certainly knew who he was announcing. I was none other than Yahshua, the Anointed One, the Messiah. He was saying, Prepare the way of Yahweh. He is coming in human form–in a human flesh body. Yahweh is come to save His people from their sins. Yah-in-human-form is Yahweh’s way to give man hope in the resurrection. The appearance of Yah in a human flesh body, is the way Yahweh makes Himself known to His creation (“I and my Father are one…If you have seen Me, you have seen the Father”).

John the Baptist was that voice of one, the forerunner of Yahweh and His coming in human flesh. “Prepare the way of Yahweh. Make His paths straight.” Those are Yahweh’s paths, where He would be walking literally in human form. Jesus/Yahshua (Yah-Is-Savior is what it means in Hebrew) is His way; He is the way, the path, the course leading us from death to life, from mortality to immortality. Yahshua/Yah-Is-Savior is The Road to Immortality, which happens to be the title of this book.

John was the forerunner of Yahweh. He was the last of the old testament prophets, for he announced the blessed appearance of Yahweh in human form. He was the herald of the fulfilling of all the prophecies of all the other prophets of olden times. He was more than a prophet, for it was John who bore witness to Yahweh’s coming as the Messiah.

Everyone will tell you that Isaiah 9: 6 speaks of the Messiah, the one they call Jesus Christ. “Unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given…and his name shall be called Wonderful, Counsellor, The Mighty God, The Everlasting Father, the Prince of Peace.” The Everlasting Father? The Christ child would grow up to become the “Everlasting Father”?

Everyone will tell you that John was the forerunner of Christ the Messiah. And all will tell you that Isaiah 9: 6 speaks of Christ. Therefore, John was the herald of “The Everlasting Father,” Yahweh Himself–in human form!

“I have found David, the son of Jesse, a man after mine own heart, which shall fulfill my will.” Acts 13: 22.

“The counsel of Yahweh standeth for ever, the thoughts of his heart to all generations. Blessed is the nation whose God is Yahweh; and the people whom he hath chosen for his own inheritance.” Psalms 33:11-12.

Chapter 15 The Father’s Heart

We are learning that the Savior’s Hebrew name is Yahshua, which means Yah-Is-Savior. And we are learning that He is the Road to Immortality. And we have learned that the steps along that Road are degrees of Wisdom and Knowledge about Him. We learned in “Step One” that Wisdom is to be in awe of the Creator—to have a reverential respect and trust for Him. In “Step Two” we learned the Knowledge of His true name and what it means to us on this way. “Step Three” gave us the Knowledge of God’s nature, His eternal Godhead—just who He is. We are now ready to take Step Four: Knowledge of His Eternal Plan and Purpose.

“Step Four” is perhaps the biggest step, for it stretches our small hearts and minds and enlarges them so that they can be able to see through God’s eyes. “My thoughts are not your thoughts, saith Yahweh.” We must realize that God has His own agenda. We humans have our own agenda, too. We are like Him in that we have a purpose for our own life. But very few of us have the same purpose for our lives as does our Heavenly Father. And herein lies the problem—for us. He has a Master design and purpose in making us and everything else in this universe, yet He is willing to use much patience in waiting for us, His crowning creation, to come into line with His purpose.

His purpose is clear and straightforward: He is reproducing Himself through a select group of human beings. Yes, He loves us and wants to save us from our selves and our selfish desires and actions. But that is only a very small part of His eternal purpose and plan—a tiny piece of the cosmic puzzle that is His heart.

What is in the Father’s heart? What desires lie there waiting to be manifested? The answer lies in the word “Father.” “Father” implies engendering, procreating, reproducing, for there cannot be a father except there be offspring. Or to state it in another way, one must have offspring in order to be a Father.

Now many claim that God is their Father. Almost all of the untold thousands of denominations of Christendom assent to that. They want to claim Him as their Father and yet deny the law of harvest He spoke into existence: “Each seed bears its own kind.” If they were His children, then they would be like Him; they would have His mind. They would share the secret desires of His heart by having the same plan and purpose that He has. The Father’s heart contains His plan and purpose: to reproduce Himself until He fills the whole universe with Himself. And He has created mankind to be the instruments that He will use to do this. He will use only His crowning creation Man to manifest Himself through.

Many people say that we cannot know what is in the Father’s heart; we cannot know His plan and purpose. Ever since the creation of the world His invisible nature, namely, His eternal power and deity, has been clearly perceived in the things that have been made. Rom.1:20.

We look around to the things that have been made, and what do we see? We see nature. We see the grass grow, come to maturity, produce seed, and reproduce itself. We see animals of all shapes and sizes—mammals, reptiles, insects, fish, et al—and we see them grow, come to maturity, produce seed and offspring and thereby reproduce themselves. We see human beings grow up, come to maturity, and reproduce themselves. It is built into every living thing; if it lives, it strives to reproduce itself.

And every living thing reproduces another that very closely resembles itself. Oak trees and their acorns produce oak saplings. Basset hounds give birth to litters of long-eared pups, and humans give birth to humans. And God said, Let the earth bring forth grass, the herb yielding seed, and fruit tree yielding fruit after his kind, whose seed is in itself, upon the earth: and it was so…Let the waters bring forth abundantly.. Let the earth bring forth the living creature after his kind, cattle, and creeping thing, and beast of the earth after his kind: and it was so. Gen.1:11, 20, 24.

We can look at the creation and see what God is doing. In nature everything is reproducing itself. We can know what God is about, what His plan and purpose is by simply observing nature. The revelation is that God is reproducing Himself, too. He has the same longing to reproduce Himself that all of his creation does. He created the earth and every living thing in it to have strong instincts and desires to procreate. Nature would mirror His desire to have offspring, just like Him.

Reproducing Himself is the business He is about. That is why He created the worlds, the heavens and earth and everything in them. They are all just an environment for Him to reproduce Himself. He is the Seed and each seed bears its own kind.

He is also the Gardener who sows Himself (the Seed/the Word) into the earth. But it is a special earth that He is sowing the Seed/Word into. That special garden is the earthly human bodies who respond to His choosing them for this purpose. The seed is the word of God. Lk. 8:11. The words that I speak unto you, they are spirit, and they are life. John 6:63.

You believe that God created man and woman. You would not be reading this if you did not. But have you ever wondered why He created us in the first place? Why did He make us the way we are, making decisions, as it were, on matters of life and death, with the power to accept or reject our Maker and His plan for us. You have heard it said, “Why didn’t God just make us robots and spare us all the pain and misery brought on by our own doing?”

The key to unlock the answers to some of these questions comes in Yahshua’s reply to the Sadducees in Matthew 22:30. They did not believe in the resurrection and were trying to stump Him with a hypothetical story about seven brothers who had died in succession, each passing on the first brother’s barren wife to the next brother as each did in turn. They had all had her as a wife, but in the resurrection, whose wife would she be? It was a trick question, so the Master told them that it proved that they did not know the scriptures nor the power of the Creator.

The Sadducees presumed through their earthly thinking that if there were a resurrection, that humans would be mating and having children just like here on earth, for they said, “Whose wife would she be?” But he said in verse 30, “For in the resurrection they neither marry, nor are given in marriage, but are as the angels of God in heaven.” After man and woman are made immortal, they will be like the angels who do not marry nor mate. No reproduction will take place by the immortal ones. This takes place after “this mortal shall have put on immortality” (I Cor. 15). When this earthly body is “swallowed up of life,” when this earthly corruptible body of dust is changed into an incorruptible spiritual body, then at that time there will be no more reproducing.

“Marrying and giving in marriage” is synonymous with having children or reproducing. “Be fruitful, multiply, and replenish the earth,” is the command to the first earthy Adam. But the “last Adam is the Lord from heaven,” or the sons of God with their resurrected spiritual bodies. And they will not be reproducing or multiplying; they will be like the angels of heaven that way.

Reproducing heavenly offspring from His earthly creation

After the resurrection, some will be changed from mortal to immortal. We will not be of this earth anymore. This earthly body is a temporary housing for the faithful who will receive a spiritual body at that time. God, then, will have reproduced Himself !

We human beings are the only scriptural way that God can reproduce His spiritual body, and have heavenly offspring. He has to do it here on earth. How ironic! How it seems to be one way and it is really another. How it seems that we have our own little earthly life and we reproduce and take much satisfaction and joy in our children, and eventually we return to dust, and our children do the same, and theirs also, and very few human beings are remembered in history. And that is that. How it seems to be that way. But in reality, God is with great patience actually in the process of reproducing heavenly offspring out of His earthly creation!

How God Multiplies Himself

“Except a corn of wheat fall into the ground and die, it abides alone. But if it die, it brings forth much fruit.” John 12:24. Yahshua the Savior was the seed, the corn of wheat, that came to earth and died, that through His death much fruit will come forth; many spiritual sons and daughters will become like Him and achieve immortality.

Yahshua said that He was the first and the last, the beginning and the end. He created all things while He was in His original form, the pattern in whose image man was created. But just like the literal seed grain must die and thereby lose its identity and its initial life in order to bring forth much fruit, so did the Word, the Seed. The First, the Original Form, Yahshua, divested Himself of His celestial, spiritual body and poured His Essence into a word, into a sentence (“In the beginning was the Word”) that was to be carried and pronounced by one of His messengers into the ear of a maiden name Miriam (Mary) of Bethlehem. Because He was a Spirit Being and not material, the pre-existent Yahshua could pour Himself into a word (“The words I speak, they are spirit and they are life”). And that word, carried by the archangel Gabriel entered her ear and it took root in her heart and in her womb by faith, and she became with child of the Spirit. And He would grow up and eventually give His life for us that we might be His offspring—immortal heavenly children, made right here on earth by His resurrection.

We have come to a mysterious place on the road to immortality. Each step henceforth is veiled in secrecy and shrouded in mystery. God has purposely made the truth of His purpose difficult to see. In so doing He is weeding out the pretenders from the contenders. His eternal purpose and plan of reproducing Himself is only given to a chosen few. “Few there be to find this way of truth.” From here on out the truth will be given only to those who are of an open mind and pure heart.

In fact, it is better to not come to this rarified knowledge if one is not prepared to go all the way. “For it had been better for them not to have known the way of righteousness, than after they have known it, to turn from the holy commandment delivered unto them.” II Peter 2:21.

It is only the openness to new truth that allows the Spirit to lead us into all truth. In John 16:12 the Master said, “When the Spirit of truth is come He will lead us into all truth.” If we had not been open a few short months ago to new truth—new to us, anyway—then we would not have been able to receive the present truth we now have. We would have been ossified, stratified, and hardened up like a rock in our hearts to receive something new.

There is a tendency for human beings to reject something that is new. There is a temptation when change is brought upon us to hold back and not get into it.

If new truth is not being revealed to us, then usually one of two things is happening. Either that person believes they have all the truth and therefore have no need of truth, or the Spirit of truth is not leading them into all truth at that particular juncture in their life. So the exhortation is to us all: remain open.

He said to prove all things. Not just the things we think are the truth. We also need to prove things out that we may not at first think is truth. He said to prove all things that come into our seeking. Because praying to Him and asking Him for guidance to discern if something is the truth or not will enable us to not miss some truth that comes our way. We need to ask Him to reveal this new thing, His plan to reproduce Himself, to us. He did say, “I will do a new thing in the earth.”

For instance, the sacred name of Yahweh is an old thing, but it is new to us. By staying open and trusting Him for discernment, we can prove all things that come our way, whether they be truth or falsehood.

In order to begin to take in the great and precious promises that Yahweh gave to our fathers the patriarchs, we first must realize that Yahweh wants to reproduce Himself. Reproduction cannot take place without a seed. We only have to look at the earth to understand this. John 1:1 could have read: “In the beginning was the Seed.” He is the Word, the Seed. The Master said, “Except a corn of wheat fall into the ground and die, it abides alone.” He would have been alone had He not fallen into the tomb three days and three nights. And now by doing that, He brings forth much fruit. He lays it all out in a very simple situation with “first the blade, then the ear, and after that the full corn in the ear.” Mark 4:28.

The Master, the Creator has a stupendous and glorious plan to reproduce Himself. He has had His prophets and righteous men write about it down through the ages. But He has kept it secret by speaking about it in parables. In order to comprehend His purpose, we must first understand His concept of the use of parables.

Man’s wisdom says that parables are nice little stories that make it easier for us to understand what God is teaching us—that they are down to earth little illustrations of spiritual matters. Nothing could be farther from the truth.

The first thing that we must realize is that parables contain the mysteries of the kingdom of heaven. They conceal the secrets of God that He has hidden since He created the heavens and the earth. We enter into an inner sanctum when we go to the parables, for they are the “dark sayings,” things that He only reveals to those who are in awe of Him. These are only for His chosen people to whom He wants to reveal His secrets unto. “For a man can receive nothing except it be given to him from heaven.”

Then the disciples came and said to him, “Why do you speak to them in parables?” And he answered them, “To you it has been given to know the secrets of the kingdom of heaven, but to them it has not been given. For to him that has will more be given (knowledge of the secrets),and he will have abundance; but from him who has not (the secrets), even what he has will be taken away. This is why I speak to them in parables, because seeing they do not see, nor do they understand…but blessed are your eyes, for they see, and your ears, for they hear.” Mt. 13:10-13, 16, RSV.

Parables are His “dark sayings.” The word “dark” is translated from the Hebrew word, chiydah, #2420 in Strong’s, meaning a “puzzle: hence a trick, conundrum, sententious maxim: dark saying (sentence, speech), hard question, proverb, riddle.” Puzzles, riddles, and conundrums are deliberately thought out by the speaker. They are purposely spoken. And so it is with His parables. All these things spake Yahshua unto the multitude in parables; and without a parable spake he not unto them; that it might be fulfilled which was spoken by the prophet saying, I will open my mouth in parables; I will utter things which have been kept secret from the foundation of the world. Mt. 13:34-35, Psm. 78:2.

He spoke in parables so that they who were meant to comprehend would, and they who were not meant to, would not. He spoke in parables and deliberately clouded the meaning so that the mysteries of the kingdom, of his governing human flesh by His Spirit, of His plans of reproducing Himself, would only be comprehended by those to whom He had given it. He spoke in these riddles, deliberately clouding the meaning, so that only certain pre-determined chosen people that He foreknew could see His plan and ultimately respond.

The Master said that one parable is the key that solves the puzzle, that answers the riddles of the other parables. By understanding this one, all the other parables would yield their secrets. That parable is the parable of the sower. And he said unto them, Know ye not this parable? And how then will ye know all parables? Mark 4:13.

Matthew 13:1-9

“The same day went Yahshua out of the house, and sat by the sea side. And great multitudes were gathered together unto him, so that he went into a ship, and sat; and the whole multitude stood on the shore.

“And he spake unto them in parables, saying, Behold, a sower went forth to sow; and when he sowed, Some seeds fell by the way side, and the fowls came and devoured them up: some fell upon stony places, where they had not much earth: and forthwith they sprung up, because they had no deepness of earth: and when the sun was up, they were scorched; and because they had no root, they withered away.

“And some fell among thorns; and the thorns sprung up, and choked them; but other fell into good ground, and brought forth fruit, some an hundredfold, some sixtyfold, some thirty-fold. Who has ears to hear, let him hear.”

Three Levels of Spiritual Fruit Production

The Master speaks no idle words. He mentions three levels of fruit production—thirty, sixty and one hundred fold. Those who do receive the word, the seed, will produce fruit for Him at different levels of spiritual growth.We know that this 30, 60, and 100 fold He mentions is spiritual because “the words He speaks are Spirit and they are life.” All three of these fruit bearers are in His fold, in His kingdom. They are all “good ground,” with a “good and honest heart.” They are in, and yet, some bear more fruit than others. That is what it says.

First, He gives His understanding to some, and to some He does not. Now some of those who make it into His kingdom will bear more fruit than others. But some will say, What is going on here? That does not seem right. But, is God unfair? He did say that His ways are not our ways, and His thoughts are not our thoughts.

We just wouldn’t do it that way. And with that thought we are tempted to believe that we are more fair than the Father. The fact is that His ways are past finding out. He is the Creator, the Potter, sitting at His wheel. We are the clay. And can the thing formed say to Him that formed it, “Why did you make me like this? I wanted to be a vessel in the house of the king, and here you have made me an old pot that the washwoman uses.” Hath not the potter power over the clay, of the same lump to make one vessel unto honour, and another unto dishonour? Romans 9:21. He is in control, and we need to look it all over.

Some will get it, and some will not

And so He is saying, I am speaking unto them in parables, and some will get it and some will not. And it is a gift. This knowledge is given to certain people in the earth. The Master goes on and says in v. 12, “For whosoever has to him shall be given.” “Has” is present tense, right now. If we are those to whom He has given these precious truths, then it is done. It may be lying dormant in there, but it is just waiting to come alive in us. We just may not realize that we are going to be the receptacle to receive this truth in its fullness.

“Whosoever has, to him shall be given.” Has what? Could it be that that person has their name written in heaven? “And he shall have more abundance: but whosoever has not, from him shall be taken away even that he has. Therefore speak I to them in parables: because they seeing see not; and hearing they hear not, neither do they understand. And in them is fulfilled the prophecy of Isaiah, which says, By hearing ye shall hear, and shall not understand; and seeing ye shall see, and shall not perceive.”

A person can look right at it and not see it. “For this people’s heart is waxed gross, and their ears are dull of hearing, and their eyes they have closed.” He knew that they would close. This is the reason that we don’t comprehend His plan and purpose. It is because our hearts and minds are in this condition. “Lest at any time they should see with their eyes and hear with their ears, and should understand with their heart, and should be converted, and I should heal them.” So they are in trouble. He is talking about the multitudes at that time and projecting forth to our time.

He goes on to say to the disciples in v. 16, “But blessed are your eyes, for they see: and your ears, for they hear. For verily I say unto you, That many prophets and righteous men have desired to see those things which ye see, and have not seen them; and to hear those things which ye hear, and have not heard them.” You are seeing things that many righteous men, prophets and kings have desired to see in their natural life, but did not. The Master is saying, “You are seeing me talk to you. You are seeing Me, Yahshua, the Self-Existent One in human form talking to you. For my name means the Self-Existent-One-is-Savior. And you are seeing me speak to you right now lining out this kingdom.”

And that is what all the prophets, who had the Spirit of Yahshua within them, looked forward to and spoke about. It was only because of His Spirit within them that they were able to speak the things that they said.

The Master explains the “Parable of the Sower”

“Hear ye therefore the parable of the sower. When any one heareth the word of the kingdom, and understandeth it not, then cometh the wicked one, and catcheth away that which was sown in his heart. This is he which received seed by the way side. But he that received the seed into stony places, the same is he that heareth the word, and anon with joy receiveth it; Yet hath he not root in himself, but dureth for a while: for when tribulation or persecution ariseth because of the word, by and by he is offended. He also that received seed among the thorns is he that heareth the word; and the care of this world and the deceitfulness of riches, choke the word, and he becometh unfruitful. But he that received seed into good ground is he that heareth the word, and understandeth it; which also beareth fruit, and bringeth forth, some an hundredfold, some sixty, some thirty.” Matthew 13:18-23.

He always alluded to what was next to them in nature—a field of wheat, barley, corn, trees. And we know that even in a well-prepared field of corn some of the ears will be bigger that others. That is all there is to it. It is a fact of life, of nature. It is His doing, and it is marvelous, and we are just grateful that we can eat of that corn. When we are eating that piece of cornbread, we don’t care if the ear that the grains were taken from was three inches long or a foot long. It is good corn. And that is the way that we should look at the little ears of corn in His kingdom, and the mid-size ears, and the big ears. We have to see the distribution of it with spiritual eyes.

In the concept of 30, 60, and 100 fold, the Master is talking about different distinct levels of fruit bearing in His kingdom. Some of his offspring will walk in His Spirit in a greater depth than others. This may be a new concept, totally new to our way of thinking.

Yet there are many other scriptures that confirm this. “First the blade, then the ear, then the full corn in the ear…Faith, hope, and charity (agape love)…Justification, sanctification, and glorification…”

The Apostle John Explains It Further

A 30, 60, and 100 fold precept is found in I John 2:12. “I write unto you, little children, because your sins are forgiven you for his name’s sake.” He is saying that I want to reassure you that your sins are forgiven because His name means Yah-is-Savior, and He has done it in your life. I don’t believe that if he were writing another apostle or prophet that he would have to reassure him about that point! The apostle Paul said, “I fathered you in the gospel.” Paul was a spiritual father, not a little child of God. And yet John is writing to all three levels of growth, children, young men, and fathers, for all three were growing together in the assemblies.

Verse 13: “I write unto you fathers, because you have known him that is from the beginning.” You have that knowledge, that depth and have gone on back into the Father’s heart and know the Father well. He’s not addressing little children “tossed to and fro and carried about with every wind of doctrine.” No. That is not a father in the gospel; that is not Paul, for sure. “I write unto you young men, because you have overcome the wicked one.” I want to encourage you in that, he is saying. In a 60 fold growth, followers of Yah will have overcome the devil.

So we see that John wrote to three different levels of growth in the Messiah here. This fits in perfectly with what Yahshua spoke of in the parable of the sower in Matthew 13. And although there is not one stone upon another in the house of Yahweh, there are three distinct levels of growth. And this is a secret and a mystery of the kingdom.

This does not set well with some people, and to some it is not a problem. If we have our own conception of the way things are in His kingdom that does not have this in it, then there could be some problems in receiving it. “Charity (agape love) rejoices at the truth.” We all must see that our job as His creation, His “create-ture,” is to believe the truth. We are not to formalize the truth in our imagination, but rather be open to it and just receive it.

Most of what John admonished in I John 2 was written to little children. He would not have written, for example, “Keep yourselves from idols,” to a Peter, Paul, or James. That was to little children who needed that exhortation.

The three levels found in another parable

Furthermore, this same concept of differing abilities, different levels of spiritual fruit-bearing in Christians, can be found in the parable of the talents in Mt. 25:14. Yahshua likens Himself unto a man who was traveling into a far country and delivered all his goods to his servants. He did not give all his servants an identical amount of goods to take care of. He entrusted five talents to one, two to another, and one to another—according to their ability. The servants with the five and two did well and were rewarded accordingly. The servant with one did not do so well. The point is that the Master makes a distinction in responsibility. The ones who were faithful, were rewarded accordingly.

If we are all the same and are going to bear the same amount and kind of fruit, why does He say, “To whom much is given, much is required”? If He gives us much responsibility in His kingdom to do, He will require much. He says of Himself, “I am an austere man, reaping where I did not sow” (His apostles have been sowing all this in us through the scriptures).

He said that there are different harvest production rates, different levels of spiritual fruit production. The word, the seed, falls into a good and honest heart. And the result is that some will bear 30 fold spiritual fruit. They are in, and it is a wonderful thing. And that may be all this writer ever does. If 30 fold is what He has for me, that is fine. I just want to be in the harvest.

And yet, some will bear 60 fold fruit; the Spirit will come into them, and they will have overcome the wicked one. And then some will be 100 fold fruit bearing offspring of the living Yahweh. They will be strong and do exploits in the land. And if I am not called to be one of these one hundred fold fruit bearers, then that is okay. I do not have a problem with it. I just want to help them do it, if that is the case. I just want to be a part of it.

Knowing about the 100 fold fruit bearers is crucial in order to understand Yahweh’s plan to reproduce Himself. What is the purpose of a seed? Obviously, it is to reproduce itself. His plan then is reproduction of Himself because He is the Seed, the original Seed. He wants to reproduce Love. He wants to reproduce Joy. He wants to fill all the earth with Himself—“the fullness of Him that fills all in all.”

Understanding that there are many mansions in the Father’s house is crucial in understanding His plan of reproducing Himself. Some people will be children in His plan. Perfect little blades of grass. “First the blade, then the ear, then the full corn in the ear.” And some will grow to near completion. And some will grow in Him so much that the Seed will reproduce Himself in them! It will be Yahweh HIMSELF in human form—again! There will be absolutely no realization in those individuals that they exist other than it is Him living in them fully. The following passages will show that “each seed bears its own kind.”

We are talking about the “secrets kept from the foundation of the world.” He is the Word, the Seed. And He is about to reveal His greatest secret. Now the secret (parable) is this:

“Now the parable is this: The seed is the word of God…In the beginning was the Word…and the Word was made flesh and dwelt among us”…Luke 8:11. John 1:1, 14. The Seed, the Word, took on a human flesh body and lived and walked among us. We become heirs of God by the faith of Abraham. Some of us are not only the fleshly posterity of Abraham but also the spiritual heirs of promise by believing. It was to “Abraham and to his seed were the promises made.” And receiving this truth leads us into what is His plan to reproduce Himself.

Yahweh has a special ground, a special piece of earth to place Himself, the Word, the Seed, into. In the parable of the sower, the seed, the word, fell into the good ground of a good and honest heart. He has a special ground, a special piece of earthly dust (human flesh) that He pours the seed into, to reproduce the seed. And that is what all of Genesis is about. That is what all of the first five books, the torah is about. That is what all of the scriptures are about.

With all this in mind, this is the message: Yahweh wants to reproduce Himself in a 100 fold capacity in a special body of believers, the elect, the sons and daughters of God. That does not mean that they are the only ones in His kingdom! There are also, according to Yahshua, some who will bear 60 fold fruit, and some who will bear 30 fold fruit. They are in his kingdom, but they are not to be the manifested sons, the kings of the “King of kings.”

The elect will come through a special people, carefully nurtured unto Himself, even though Adam, the first of the line, sinned. Yahweh, through His foreknowledge, knew that this would happen and, consequently, had already made provisions for Adam’s offspring to fulfill His plan (through “the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world”). He meticulously kept their line pure, forbidding them to marry the other peoples they lived among. Remember Abraham when he made Eliezer swear unto Yahweh that he would not take a wife for Isaac from any other nation than Abraham’s own people. Also, what did Rebecca, the wife of Isaac say when Jacob her son was going out to find a wife? She was trembling, stricken with fear, when she said to him, “My whole life will be in vain if you go and take a daughter of the strangers in our midst” (Of course, that was exactly what Esau, Jacob’s twin, did).

But why would she feel this way? Because she knew Yahweh’s purpose in having a special seed line in the earth—a lineage of people chosen for Him to reproduce Himself through. This special line of people in the earth was “the apple of God’s eye.”

If someone is the “apple of your eye,” you think about them and are greatly concerned about them. You care about them deeply and wonder how they are doing, how they are feeling, if they have any needs or necessities. It is interesting that most of us who have an “apple of our eye” have a child or a grand child as that loved one.

But who or what is the apple of God’s eye? Who or what entity occupies His thoughts? Who is He mindful of? Who does He think about all the time? The answers to these questions will lead us to the thoughts that we should be thinking on, for they will be the very thoughts of Yahweh Himself!

We are exhorted in the scriptures to have the Master’s mind. We are encouraged to let His mind be in us. What was His mind like? What kind of thoughts did He have? Yah-in-human-form claimed that He had no original thoughts. If you have seen Me, you have seen the Father…I and my Father are one…I came not to do my own will, but the will of Him that sent Me. When the Son spoke, it was the Father speaking. So then, if we go back into the old writings, we can directly see just what are the thoughts of Yahweh!

Yahweh’s thoughts are far-reaching, permanent and unchanging. “The counsel of Yahweh stands forever, the thoughts of his heart to all generations.” Psm. 33:11. Whatever it is that He is thinking about, it is forever, and it will stand for all time. Speaking about Him, Job says in 23:13 that when the Creator gets it in His mind, it is permanent. “But he is in one mind, and who can turn him?” Yahweh is single-minded; He has a plan and purpose, and it really does not matter if Satan or man tries to spoil it. Yahweh will perform it. His thoughts will not be denied their fruition.

So, who are these thoughts about? Many, O Yahweh my Elohim are your wonderful works which you have done, and your thoughts which are to us-ward: they cannot be reckoned up in order unto you: if I would declare and speak of them, they are more than can be numbered. Psm. 40:5. His thoughts are wonderful and without number toward “us,” David says. The “us” here is Israel, for David was king of Israel, the whole 12-tribed House of Israel. And Yahweh is mindful of His covenant with His people Israel (Psm.111:5).

So there we have it. Yahweh’s thoughts are about His chosen people. His people under David and Solomon were direct descendents of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob/Israel. After sojourning in Egypt for 400 years, they were delivered by Moses and took the land of Canaan, the land promised to Abraham, under Joshua. There each of the twelve tribes except Levi received land grants for their families. After several centuries of the Judges and prophets ruling over them, all twelve tribes became a kingdom with Saul and then David as their king.

During the reign of Rehoboam, Solomon’s son, the Kingdom of Israel (12 tribes) was torn into two separate kingdoms around 950 B.C., the Kingdom of Israel with the 10 northernmost tribes and the Kingdom of Judah with the tribes of Judah and Benjamin to the south. At that time they had separate capitals and were different kingdoms with a different line of kings ruling. Many times we find them at war with each other.

The Kingdom of Israel (ten tribes with their capital at Samaria) sinned greatly against Yahweh. Their leaders changed the sabbath day and set up worship of false gods throughout the northern tribes. True prophets were sent to them, yet they repented not from the false worship. They were warned that Yahweh would allow Assyria from the east to lead them into captivity. This happened in 721 B.C. Assyria put the entire nation of Israelites into their Assyrian cities and eventually the 10 tribes would migrate “north and west” of Jerusalem “into a country thou knowest not.” They eventually ended up in Western Europe, the British Isles, and North America. They include the Scandinavian, Celtic, Anglo-Saxon, Germanic, and Scots-Irish peoples. Exhaustive studies have been made of this throughout the centuries and are easily attained though libraries and internet sources under the “lost tribes of Israel” and “British Israel”[See Appendix A].

These 10 tribes of Jacob/Israel became lost. They lost the sabbath; they lost their own identity as being the fleshly chosen people of God. They became lost in the paganism that they embraced—the same paganism that had caused their captivity in the first place. But something of a spark was left in some of them—an ability to respond to the truth.

The 2-tribed Kingdom of Judah with its capital at Jerusalem lasted until the sieges of the Babylonian Nebuchadnezzar in 587 B.C. when they fell to his armies. They were carried captive to Babylon, and after 70 years a remnant was sent back to restore worship in Jerusalem. At this time Judaism, the religion, was born of the Babylonian Talmud, which superimposed many manmade ordinances and replaced the ancient Hebrew worship established by the patriarchs and prophets. Many converts like Herod, who was a descendant of Esau, Jacob’s twin brother, converted to this religion. Esau, known as Edom, father of the Idumaens, had sold his birth- right to Jacob and had gone against the word of Yahweh in taking wives of the other races.

The Pharisees and Sadducees, leaders of sects of this Judaism religion, were strongly rebuked as “children of the devil” by Yahshua, the Son of God. What they had, evidently, was the opposite of what He is.

“I am not sent but to the lost sheep of the House of Israel”

And so in the heat of this cauldron of religion and politics of a Roman-dominated Judea, we have the Master, the Messiah, say, “I am not sent but to the lost sheep of the House of Israel.” An astounding statement, but it proves that His thoughts toward His chosen people in the earth are solid and permanent. And even if they did not know who they were at that time (as most do not in ours), He still did not forget them 750 years after their captivity! He was still thinking about them and had not forgotten them! He is ever mindful of his covenant. He has shown His people the power of His works, in giving them the heritage of the nations. Psm. 111:5.

So we see that Yahweh was and is thinking about a lineage of people out of the loins of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob/Israel. This people He made a covenant with that He would stick with them and eventually, even though they rebelled against Him, they would return to Him and be His people.

His people are His portion

These people are so special to Him that “when He separated the sons of Adam, He set the bounds of the people according to the number of the children of Israel. For Yahweh’s portion is His people; Jacob is the lot of His inheritance” (Deut. 32:8-9). The true people Israel are so important to Him that they are His portion; they are what God gets out of all of this. We get Him; He gets us. We are getting the better deal. God “found Jacob in a desert land, and in the waste howling wilderness; he led him about, he instructed him, he kept him as the apple of his eye” (v. 10).

Jacob/Israel is the apple of God’s eye. They are special to Him; they are his chosen people. God is no respecter of persons, “not willing that any should perish,” but He is a respecter of nations and peoples. A mild perusal of Genesis 1-10 will show that some nations were cursed and some were blessed. And from the beginning, God was blessing a certain seed line from Seth through Enoch and on down through Noah, Shem, and on down through Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, whose name He changed to Israel.

And Jacob/Israel had 12 sons, but the apple of Jacob/Israel’s eye was his son Joseph, who was the firstborn son of Jacob’s wife Rachel and who received the birthright.

Jacob loved them all, but Joseph was special, as we can see in Genesis 37:3. This is that same Joseph who was sold into slavery by his jealous brothers. “Now Israel loved Joseph more than all his children.” We see this also in the blessings of Jacob on his 12 sons in Gen. 49:1: “And Jacob called unto his sons, and said, Gather yourselves together, that I may tell you that which shall befall you in the last days.” And Jacob begins to give prophecy as to the future of his sons’ families who would become nations in the earth. Most are rather short and uneventful, until he gets to Joseph:

”Joseph is a fruitful bough, even a fruitful bough by a well; whose branches run over the wall: the archers have sorely grieved him, and shot at him, and hated him: but his bow abode in strength and the arms of his hands were made strong by the hands of the mighty God of Jacob; (from thence is the shepherd, the stone of IsraelJ Even by the God of thy father, who shall help thee; and by the Almighty, who shall bless thee with blessings of heaven above, blessings of the deep that lies under, blessings of the breasts, and of the womb: the blessings of thy father have prevailed above the blessings of my progenitors unto the utmost bound of the everlasting hill: they shall be on the head of Joseph, and on the crown of the head of him that was separate from his brethren” (v. 22-26).

Jacob/Israel in this prophecy says what shall befall his sons in the last days. Of course, he means the descendants of his sons. It is here that many reject that the descendents of Jacob/Israel, the lost tribes of Jacob/Israel, are in the earth today. Many just do not believe that the lost tribes of Israel can be nations in the earth at this present time.

Proof that the descendents of Jacob/Israel are nations in the earth today and not just the modern day Israeli nation

But the prophet Jeremiah tells us that they positively are in the earth as nations! And Yahweh puts His ordinances of the lights in the heavens on the line to insure the continuance of Israel as a nation in the earth! “Thus says Yahweh, which gives the sun for a light by day, and the ordinances of the moon and of the stars for a light by night, which divides the seas when the waves thereof roar; Yahweh of hosts is his name: if those ordinances depart from before me, says Yahweh, then the seed of Israel also shall cease from being a nation before me for ever.” Jer. 31:35-36.

To prove to ourselves that the 12 tribes of Israel are a nation today, we have to only ask ourselves one question: Can we count on the sun and moon and stars to do what He made them to do? Are they still giving light and helping us to keep time and seasons? If we can answer yes, then we know that the seed, the descendants of Israel, are still a nation in the earth today.

Jeremiah prophesies that Yahweh’s people “Israel and Judah will return to the land that I gave their fathers, and they shall possess it” (30:3). Some say that that was fulfilled when the Israeli state was set up in 1948. One thing is wrong with that statement. Jeremiah says that both “Israel (10 tribes) and Judah (2 tribes)” will come back.

He says that during “Jacob’s trouble (v.7)” (the Great Tribulation) that His people will turn to Him and return to the land He promised to their fathers Abraham, Isaac, and Israel. “In the latter days you shall consider it” (30:24). “At the same time, says Yahweh, will I be the God of all the families of Israel, and they shall be my people” (31:1). In the latter days all the 12 tribes will be restored to Him as His people. Question: How can the Jews fulfill all this at this present time when the lost tribes of Israel don’t even know who they are, much less be restored into the promised land? He said, “All the families of Israel” would be His people. The Jews cannot by definition fulfill that. If modern day Jews were from the fleshly lineage of Jacob, they would only be the two tribes, Judah and Benjamin, with a few of Levi thrown in [85% of today’s Jews are not natural descendents of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, according to Arthur Koestler’s The Thirteenth Tribe].

“God has not cast away His people whom He foreknew,” says the apostle Paul in Romans 9. But Yahweh will take the whole House of Israel through Jacob’s trouble, the tribulation. He then will restore them through a remnant that He is calling out from them to be a light to the rest of the world. The Israelites that respond are the “apple of His eye,” a peculiar nation of kings and priests (teachers). He will bring these sons and daughters to immortality to be just like Him. Those are His thoughts toward the “apple of His eye.”

That is what He is thinking about—reproducing Himself in His people. Those are His thoughts toward the true fleshly lineage of Jacob/Israel. They are His special people with a special calling. They are the apple of His eye, the fruit of His vision. And inside the fruit, is the seed, the word of God, if so be that they have received Him. And as the Word (the seed) was made flesh and dwelt among us, so also shall that same word/seed grow in Israel and come to full fruit.

The Word will once more be made flesh and dwell among the other nations, and Immortal Ones shall tread the earth and show forth Yahweh’s thoughts and nature throughout all eternity, until He fills the whole universe with His essence and nature. And that essence and nature is loving the good and hating the evil.

All the way through the scriptures you can see the way Yahweh lavishes His love on His special people in the earth, even calling them the “ancient people.” The Hebrew word translated “ancient” is the same word used in many places for “everlasting.” And who, as I, shall call, and shall declare it, and set it in order for me, since I appointed the ancient (everlasting) people? Fear ye not, neither be afraid…you are even my witnesses. Isa. 44:7. In other words He is saying, I will use you true House of Israel descendants as a testimony and fulfillment of this scripture by granting you everlasting immortality!

The Spirit of Yahweh is addressing Jacob/Israel from verse one on. Yet now hear, O Jacob my servant; and Israel, whom I have chosen. There it is. Jacob/Israel is an appointed people, some of which will be elected by Yahweh to fully reveal Himself to the world. They will be His testimony in the earth, His witnesses that will give evidence and a witness to this whole earth.

This is the very reason that Yahweh took the 12 tribes of Israel on as a wife in the first place. He needed a wife in order to reproduce Himself. The Word, the Seed, bears its own kind, and fully manifested sons of God will be the 100 fold fruit that will come out of the womb of the 12 Tribes of Israel. They will be the full fruit 100 fold offspring of Yahweh. “Can the children of the bridechamber fast as long as the bridegroom is with them.” He spoke that about His disciples. They were the children, the sons, the offspring of the relationship of the Seed and fleshly Israel, Yahweh’s wife.

His plan from time immemorial was that He would fully reproduce Himself through His chosen people—a line from Adam, Seth, on down through Enoch, Noah, Shem, and on down through Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob/Israel and his 12 sons, and on down through to us.

You mean that He will choose out certain individuals from this line of people to be just like Him and to do great things in the earth? Yes.

But a thought will come up? What about these people over here who are not of the 12 tribes of Israel, who are not of the Nordic, Anglo-Saxon, Germanic, Scandinavian, Western European, Caucasian lineage of people? It sounds so elitist, so racist. You mean they are all okay in the sight of God just because they are the descendents of Jacob/Israel?

Absolutely not. If they do not repent, they shall all likewise perish. For not all who are descended from Israel are Israel. Nor because they are his descendants are they all Abraham’s children. On the contrary, “It is through Isaac that your offspring will be reckoned.” In other words, it is not the natural children who are God’s children, but it is the children of the promise who are regarded as Abraham’s offspring. Rom.9:6-8. If the natural descendants of the Hebrew patriarchs do not repent and believe, then they are not the children of God.

Yahweh is fair. Just because a person is of the lineage of Jacob/Israel, that does not guarantee anything. He does take a special interest in these people. He definitely said He did, and if we ignore this fact, we shall have ignored the thoughts of Yahweh’s mind. And we ignore this fact at our own peril. He is fair and kind to all. Anyone who repents and turns their heart to Him, He will in no wise cast away. Yet His fairness must not be construed as His total plan and purpose. He has an everlasting people who He loves with an eternal love.

And Yahweh made promises and a covenant with them in Abraham that He would not only bless him and his descendants, but would also bless the whole world through them. You may read in the first 10 chapters of Genesis how like a mother hen, Yahweh meticulously protects and keeps His chosen people separate from the other nations around them. They are a heavenly race, not of this world. They were strangers and foreigners and looked for a heavenly country, their country. They were different than the others. The whole conflict of the Hebrew people was Satan trying to deceive them into thinking that they were the same as the other nations!

And now in our time the Spirit will fuse with some of the descendants of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob/Israel. They will become the body of Yahshua in the earth for these last days. When we read about the Messiah’s body, we usually only see Yahshua, the Savior. Yes, He is the Head. But He is the Head of a whole body of sons. “Can the head say to the hand, I have no need of thee?” Who is going to be His arms? Who is going to be His legs? Who is going to be His mouth?” It is a corporate body of many sons. These will have full power, just like their Head Yahshua. They are His body. They will be strong and do exploits in the land. These are they who have answered the high calling.

Yahweh has a special calling for His people. “Many are called, but few are chosen.” Those that “make their calling and election sure” become the elect. But what is this calling exactly?

“Where there is no vision, the people perish.” When they don’t have the vision for themselves that Yahweh has for them, then they will perish and wither on the vine. What is this vision that Yahweh has for this special people in the earth?

He said that He wants to make His people a kingdom of priests and kings. For He is the “King of kings.” He also is the High Priest of many priests. He says that He is making us a “peculiar nation, a royal priesthood, a chosen generation” (The word “priest” in your center column reference is rendered “teachers,” teachers of Him and His precepts and His government).

If we as Israel the people of God don’t know where we have come from and where we are going in His plan, then we are still part of the Lost Tribes of Israel. We are not found yet. We have not discovered our identity yet. But when we awaken, when His vision is quickened in our hearts, and we really see what He wants us to be as His chosen people, then it changes everything. We begin to get on fire. We begin to say, Wait a minute. I can do this. I can be what He wants me to be. But that brings us back around to the question that we must ask: What is it exactly that He wants His chosen people to be?

Paul talks about a “high calling” for the people of God. In Phillipians 3:7-15, “But what things were gain to me, those I counted loss for Christ. Yea doubtless, and I count all things but loss for the excellency of the knowledge.” His people are destroyed for the lack of knowledge of who they are, who He is, and what His plan is. The knowledge of what now? Paul is saying that he is counting everything that this world has to offer as a loss for this one thing–“the excellency of the knowledge of Yahshua Messiah my Master, for whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and do count them but dung, that I may win Him,” that I may be part of His company of many sons.

Many times when we say the words “Savior, Messiah, the Son of God,” we think of one historical personage, but there are many members of His one body where many will walk as He walked. That is what He is wanting.

But someone will question this and say, “What do you think you are, a bunch of little Jesus Christs?” No. It is His Spirit; He wants to multiply Himself. He wants us all to manifest His Spirit of love, joy, peace, just like Paul and Peter and the other early followers.

And then someone will gainsay, “You can’t be like Him! You can’t be like Him!” And I don’t claim to be. But if you won’t let me be like Jesus, is it okay if I be like Peter? Is it okay if I be like Paul? That would be good enough.

So in the above passage Paul is going to win Yahshua and be “found in Him, not having my own righteousness which is of the law.” That means when one tries to keep the ten commandments on their own strength and not with the Spirit’s help. “But that which is through the faith (belief) of the Messiah, the righteousness which is of God by faith” (v. 8-9).

“That I may know Him” (talking about this knowledge without which we as His people are destroyed) “and the power of His resurrection…” Many times in the past I thought that knowing the power of His resurrection meant that I know what it is to have raised somebody from the dead. But that thought is all centered on ME and how great and powerful I have become! I was musing on this mighty resurrection power of the Creator and how it would surge through me to raise up a dead body. No. That is not it. Knowing the power of His resurrection means experiencing HIM changing me from a mortal to an immortal being! It is Himgranting this vessel of mine immortality! Praise Yah! When this mortal puts on immortality! That is really knowing the “power of His resurrection!”

In verse 11: “If by any means I might attain unto the resurrection of the dead.” These are fine phrases; these are wonderful words, but what exactly is this knowledge that He is talking about, this resurrection of the dead? “Not that I had already attained…” I am still mortal, Paul is saying. “Either were already perfect…” When that which is perfect is come—being changed from mortal to immortal—all the other temporary things like our earthly bodies will be done away with—“but I follow after, if that I may apprehend that for which also I am apprehended of the Master.” The Master says that you have not chosen me, but I have chosen you to bring this glorification upon.

Pretty heady stuff. It just sounds so prideful when you are talking about getting glorified. The Master said in John 17:22, “And the glory which you gave me I have given them; that they may be one, even as we are one: I in them, and you in me, that they may be made perfect in one.” That was His prayer! That all of us would be glorified and be one with Him! But it is difficult to fully be one with Him if we are still living in a fleshly, earthly body, for He now dwells in a glorified, spiritual body. But some will say that He was just talking about the original 12 disciples 2000 years ago, but in 17:20 He states that it is not just the 12 that He’s praying for but for “all those who shall believe through their word.” That is us!

Immortality: The High Calling

Paul continues in Phil. 3:13: “Brethren, I count not myself to have apprehended…” He is saying, I’m going after this thing; I want to be one of those who He is going to change into an immortal. And He knows there are many of us that it is going to happen to. “Behold what manner of love the Father has bestowed upon us that we should be called the sons of God” (I John 3:1). But Paul now is going to forget “those things that are behind and reach forth unto those things which are before.”

What is the greatest thing in our life that we have in front of us, before us? It has got to be immortality, everlasting life, life eternal. Paul says that he is forgetting all the things in his life that have gone on before. He is forgetting the old conversation, the old worldly things that he used to talk about, forgetting the old ways of thinking, the old habits, the old way we used to be. Counting all those things that we were and that we did as dung—that old pride and arrogance—and start walking in this newness of life. Paul is saying that he will forget all the old things of his past and reach forth for this immortality that is coming. He says that he is pressing on for “the mark of the prize of the high calling” of Yah-in-human-form.

“Let us, therefore, as many as be perfect, be thus minded.” He didn’t say as many as “are” perfect. “Be” is the infinitive which speaks infinity, a place where there is no time or tense. He is saying, in other words, those of you that lay hold of this message of your soon coming immortality, you need to think on these things that I am telling you.

Yahweh’s high calling is for Him to be fully formed in you. Paul talks more about this in Roman 8:18. “For I reckon that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory which shall be revealed in us.” In us? For the creation is waiting for the making known of the sons of God, Paul says in the next phrase. God subjected the whole creation to vanity, to no profit, to futility. “Because the creation itself also shall be delivered from the bondage of corruption…” (the physical corruption of our mortal bodies) “…into the glorious liberty of the children of God” (His immortal ones, just like Him).

Paul is talking immortality here, as he did in I Cor. 15, the resurrection chapter. At His coming, this earthly body, that may die and turn to dust, will be changed like unto His immortal body. “Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of man the things God has prepared for those that wait upon Him and that love Him.” Immortality!

The whole creation is groaning. The people of this earth need to be delivered from the deception of worldly governments and economic systems. Look at the evil in high places. And we are groaning under the high taxes that we have to pay to the private banking corporations, the Federal Reserve System and the other Central Banks all over the world that are squeezing the people dry. These private banks, that sound so governmental, print the paper money, loan it to our government so that they can throw it away on $500 toilet seats, and we, the taxpayers, have to pay the interest on this national debt with our income taxes! This nation and all the nations of the world are in bondage, for the borrower is servant to the lender.

America is in trouble. “The creation is groaning and travailing in pain until now. And not only they, but ourselves also, which have the firstfruits of the Spirit.” Even us who have a bit of truth, a small portion of His Spirit, we are groaning right along with the rest of creation waiting for one thing; we are waiting for this great event to happen: the adoption, the redemption of our bodies, the putting on of immortality!

This is the high calling: to be one of the immortal ones, one of the manifested sons of God. He knew beforehand all those that He places this high calling on. And He also gave them this destiny—to be one of His immortal offspring. To be just like Himself in human form. These are the elect, the ones He has chosen before the world ever was. ”And we know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to his purpose. For whom he did foreknow, he also did predestinate to be conformed to the image of His Son, that He might be the firstborn among many brethren. Moreover whom he did predestinate, them he also called: and whom he called, them he also justified: and whom he justified, them he also glorified…Who shall lay anything to the charge of God’s elect?” (Romans 8:28-30,33).

Destroyed for lack of knowledge

But, His people are being destroyed because they do not know who He really is. They do not know who they are nor the wonderful, pre-destined promises that He has made especially for them.

We Israelites need to realize that in not knowing this, we don’t know where we have come from. We don’t know our history nor the prophecy given over us. We don’t know where we are going. The word of Yahweh spoken over our ancestors, the sons of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob/Israel through His prophets, all this is there to be quickened within us by belief. For His word will not return unto Him void, but will accomplish the purpose for which He spoke it. He spoke it over our ancestors, and He is speaking it over us today. And if we will take it to heart and walk in it, this world will turn around.

His purpose for His elect is immortal sonship! In Revelation 7 and 14 there are 144,000 “redeemed from among men and are the firstfruits unto God.” They are with Him in Spirit and truth, and they are standing as an army, immortal as He, for each seed bears its own kind. And where does Rev. 7 say He gets these immortal ones from? He will select them from the 12 tribes of Israel. Not from just Judah, but from the 12 tribes!

To be like Him—that is the high calling. And we need to make this calling and election sure by studying and proving all things. We must read, dig deep and put our house upon the rock where these truths will be solid. And after we have finished, we will be able to stand with Him and walk with Him.

[I wrote the following bedtime story for my grandson Cody Hancock. I wanted him to know the truth about creation, about the Creator and His plan and purpose.]

Long, long ago, before the earth or the heavens were, God, the Supreme Being, existed. He was and is the Self-existent One and needed nothing else to sustain His life, for He is Life itself. He was and is the great, wonderful, invisible Spirit. And in the beginning, He realized that even though He was great and all-powerful and magnificent, He was alone.

He knew that He could be any way He wanted to be and make happen anything He wanted to see happen. He could create things only to destroy them and watch the fires consume them, or He could create beautiful things, things with meaning, things that would endure forever. So He had to make a choice whether to be a mean, selfish destructive creator/destroyer or to be a sharing, compassionate, kind and loving creator/sustainer. So He looked inside the core of His Spirit and heart and recognized immediately that there was nothing but Love inside. All He wanted was to share and give and spread around this goodness and peace that was His essence. His nature was Love.

And because He was and is Love, He wanted to share His essence with someone else. That is the nature of true love—sharing and giving. Having all power and able to do anything that His nature of love could dictate, He began His creative power by making the Original Form.

Now this Original Form was a body composed of spirit. Our bodies are made of earth, dust, and clay. His was a body that could not die, for it was made of His essence, which is Life. It was an immortal, spiritual body through which He could speak and listen and make Himself known. He could speak the Word now that would show and express what was His essence. This was the form that He chose to express Himself through.

Through the mouth of His spiritual body He could express in a word what was inside Him. And this word that He could now express was “Love.” In the beginning was the Word and that Word is Love. He could now speak through His own mouth the things in His heart. He could speak into existence the heavens and the earth.

He would create magnificent stars set in a universal expanse so vast and wonderful. He would create a home called Heaven for Himself and the helpers He would create. He would create a special star of undying energy and warmth, a star we call the Sun. He would create on a plane of physical existence a planet that would revolve around that warmth, a planet perfect for a special life He would soon create for His own purposes.

And so He said, “Let the galaxies with their stars and planets appear.” And it happened! And as He framed the worlds and created the heavens and the earth He kept in mind His ultimate purpose for making all things. He wanted to reproduce Himself. He wanted to multiply Himself. He desired to multiply Himself as the seeds of the earth produce their own kind of fruit.

And so He thought and thought about ways in which to express and demonstrate just what was inside His heart. He asked, “How do I show just what I, Love, am about?”

So He looked around at the absolutely astounding heavens that He had created. And He said, “They are good. They are beautiful, but yet, they cannot appreciate who made them and the love wherewith they were made. For they cannot feel, think or love in return.”

And so He thought and thought some more and came up with a plan. “I will create a living creature, a human being out of the dust of one of my planets called earth. I will create him with the mental and spiritual sensibilities and capabilities to be able to comprehend just who I am and what I am about–which is Love.”

And He said, “But I will need helpers, emissaries, and messengers to help me carry out my plan to reproduce Myself. I will create immortal angels, composed of spirit, and they will assist me in ministering to the needs of the human beings.” And so He created the heavenly hosts and instructed them and assigned a third of them to the planet earth to prepare it for His crowning creation. And He called His crowning creation Adam, meaning in His original Hebrew tongue, “to show blood in the face, to flush or turn rosy, to be made red or ruddy.” In our language he is called “Man.”

Over this third part of the angels He sent one of His arch-angels whose name has come down to us as Lucifer. Lucifer knew that God had a plan to reproduce Himself and that the earth was the place for this reproduction. But the archangel said in his heart, “I will ascend and be like the most high God. I want to be like God. I’m already immortal, I’m beautiful, and I don’t see why it can’t be us, who are doing all the work during the heat and length of the day. It is not fair.”

And so Lucifer became Satan and led the angels that were with him into rebelling against the Creator who had brought them into existence and had included them in His plan. These angels made a choice to rebel and so sin entered into the universe. Pride goes before a fall. But God knew beforehand what would happen.

And so they ascended up from earth to heaven to try to overthrow the Creator. Lucifer and his angels fought against Michael and His angels. After the greatest battle the galaxies will ever see, the faithful angels overcame the evil ones, who were cast out of heaven back to the earth.

After the heavenly dust had settled, the Creator went on to the next step of His master plan. He still, however, did not have in place what He needed to express Himself and multiply Himself.

So He thought and thought some more, and He continued His plan. He said, “In order to reproduce my nature of Love, I must testify as to what the greatest Love can be. Now there is no greater love than to lay down your life for your friends. But I am a Spirit dwelling in a spiritual body, and I cannot die in this form, for I am immortal.

And then it came to Him. He would give up His life on His throne in heaven and would come to earth and dwell with his crowning creation, man, in a human body like theirs! He would walk among them and love them and care for them and show them how to do what He does and show them by His life what He is, which is Love.

He would heal their sick and raise their dead, and He would give them the example they needed in order for them to love like Him. He would be clothed in flesh for a time. He would walk humbly, knowing that it was the Great Spirit of Love within Him that was doing the works of love. And then He would do the ultimate act that would show Love; He would die for his creation; He would give up that human life He was walking in and then three days later, He would raise it from the dead. He would do this willingly and lovingly.

In doing this He would accomplish many things. It would set an example for man to follow. It would provide a perfect sacrifice to atone for man’s sins. And it would defeat His arch-enemy Satan on earth. And God would defeat Satan when God was at His weakest, in a human death. And He would show His most excellent power in raising His body from the dead. And then He would glorify that body that He had walked in and had laid down in death. He would change it into a spiritual body, an immortal body. And He would promise man that if they followed Him in spiritually laying down their lives for others, they would receive immortality also.

Yet the most astounding, beautiful, wonderful thing about this is that this glorified spiritual body of His that He raised from the dead, that body now is the same body that He originally made for Himself in the heavens before the worlds ever were created!

For He is the Beginning and the Ending, the first and the last, the root and offspring of David, the Alpha and the Omega. He is the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world.

“To depart from evil is understanding.” Job 28:28. “Knowledge of the holy is understanding.” Proverbs 9:10

So far we have taken some very necessary steps on the road to immortality. We have discovered that Yahweh-Is-Savior is that Road to Everlasting Life. We have learned how to be in awe of Him, which is the obtaining of wisdom. We have learned His true name, His nature, and His eternal purpose and plan.

But all these steps have amounted to the mere acquisition of knowledge—extremely important, of course, and necessary, but knowledge nonetheless. In this next step, however, we must do and not just know. We will learn to put this knowledge into practice. We now start doing what we know to do.

Talk is cheap; action is expensive. “If you know these things, happy are you if you do them,” said the Master. Conversely, if we gain knowledge of the holy things and do not begin to do them and walk in them, then we will not be happy. …The latter end is worse with them than the beginning. For it had been better for them not to have known the way of righteousness, than, after they have known it, to turn from the holy commandment delivered unto them. II Peter 2:21.

Receiving knowledge of the high, sanctified, set-apart things of God is the gaining of understanding. Now at first this does not make much sense to us because we have man’s definition of what understanding is, much like we had man’s definition of what wisdom was in step one. When we think of the word “understanding,” we think of comprehending something—the ability of making sense of something. But this is man’s interpretation. When we begin to attain knowledge of the holy things, the secret things, the things that the Supreme Being reserves only for those who fear Him and are awe of Him—that is understanding! And this knowledge of the sanctified things, the things that the Almighty has set apart and reserved for only a few—that is understanding and that will bring us into the desire to flee the evil of our ways, to depart from the old life and get into the flow of His new life within us. …The knowledge of the holy is understanding. Proverbs 9:10…To depart from evil is understanding. Job 28:28. Understanding is knowing about His true ways which leads us to depart from evil.

True knowledge about the Most High’s sacred truths will lead us into doing something about it; it will lead us to fleeing the evil. But how do we do really ever be rid of the sin in our lives?

A few of us humans will achieve immortality when we are given a new spiritual body at the time of the resurrection, the time of the Messiah’s return. But not everyone that says that He is Master of their life will become immortal. It will only be those who are alive and have the Spirit of God dwelling in them in a reality, or those who had the Spirit of God dwelling in them at the time that their earthly bodies fell asleep, these also will be given a new immortal spiritual body during the first resurrection.

You have a mortal, fleshly body at this time, but God Almighty has unlimited power and he is quite capable with the mere power of his word to give you a new spiritual body as it has pleased him in his eternal plan and purpose laid down since before the beginning of the world. (II Cor. 5:1). He will have called many, but few are chosen for this the greatest of all honors—to be one of the many sons and daughters that God is bringing to glory. It is a great love that will bestow this on a select few, for few there will be to find this way of truth. It is quite easy to find the way that leads to destruction, misery, and desolation. A narrow gate awaits those who enter the way that leads to love, honor, and glory.

The sole criteria in achieving immortality is that we receive the Spirit of God somehow into our bodies. But therein lies the problem for mankind. The Spirit God will not dwell in unclean temples. The human body was created for the express purpose to house the Spirit of God, the essence of Himself. God made his crowning creation, man and woman, to house Himself. Mankind is to be His temple.

However, God cannot dwell in the fleshly, earthly tabernacle called the human being until He cleans out the temple first. The old carnal nature dwells in unregenerated man. Man in his original fleshly state is abominable before God.

If He were speaking directly to us, perhaps He would say, “Your actions toward your fellow man make you filthy before Me. The inside of you is dirty. It is your heart that needs cleansing. Your nature of selfishness is an abomination before God. You lie, cheat, steal, kill, commit adultery, want other people’s worldly possessions–even their sons and daughters and wives and husbands. Nothing is sacred to you humans anymore, but then it was always that way. I gave you a simple ten point law and you refuse to keep it because there is nothing in it for yourself. You worship other things besides Me, your Creator God. And you don’t keep the one day that I said to keep holy, the sabbath. A very simple law, but a very profound law.

“You humans basically worship yourselves, think of yourselves first, put your thoughts for your lives first. Always first, first, first. And before you realize it, there is little if any thought for, or even about Me in your thoughts. You see, your thoughts make the temple, your body, unclean. Your center is not right, is not on Me the Creator, and so, man and woman live out their little mortal existences, leading their little desperate rut-like lives, never glimpsing the truth of the potential of what could be for them. And that potential is immortality, never ending life, everlasting life, eternal life, a life of infinite years.

“But man’s problem is that he wants his own life to go on without end. He wants his own selfish little existence to continue unabated with everyone worshipping him and centering in on his every whim and inordinate desire. He wants to live forever in his way of getting for himself. And yet he doesn’t realize that that way of life cannot last forever. The way of getting selfishly will end up in death. Labor in the fields of selfishness, and all you are paid is death. In all man’s thoughts these things should not be, but that’s the way of all man’s flesh that doesn’t heed the higher call. This is man’s grief—that he can’t take it with him. This is the proverbial vanity of vanities. No profit under the sun of all one’s labor spent upon oneself.”

So God cannot live in the midst of all that selfishness—a lawlessness that is called sin, for the breaking of the ten commandments is sin. And God hates sin because it is so against His nature. He wants to live in man and woman, but He can’t because when man is full of himself, then there is no room for God. Selfish action is a selfish spirit and is the opposite of God’s Spirit, which is the action called Love.

So there again is man’s problem; he wants to live forever, but wants to live his own selfish life forever, and this thinking breeds mortality, the way of death. In order to gain immortality, man must have God’s Spirit living within him. But the Spirit of God will not dwell in temples (bodies) that are unclean (have actions done in them that are sinful in breaking the l0 commandments). Mankind that comes as far as this knowledge on the road of life comes to a fork in the road. He must chose to either remain as he is and how he has been living, or he must seek a way to repent, to change the error of his ways. In other words, he must find a way to stop breaking the l0 commandments.

And men have tried in the past to do just that to keep the ten commandments of God. They have failed miserably, for they have tried on their own strength and power to do so. It is impossible to keep them without God’s help. We are created that way, so that we must, in order to please Him, turn to Him for his power and strength to keep His holy law. The mightiest of body and the noblest of mind found among men cannot obey the law without His Spirit doing it in and through them.

One would ask then, “What can a person do in order to keep the law?”

First, he must through a broken and contrite spirit and heart be sorry for the way he has treated his fellow man and God. This sorrow can grow and eventually yield a desire to not do those things again. He will then repent of his sins, turn away from that way of getting for himself, and throw himself on God’s mercy to forgive him. God is rich in mercy and wants to receive his creation back into the fold of His plan and purpose. If they are sincere, He will forgive them and cleanse them from the filth and uncleanness.

We are cleansed by the shed blood of the Lamb, Yahshua, Yah-in-human-form, who gave Himself up in sacrifice for us.

It all hinges on faith and belief in the sacrifice that God has ordained–the only sacrifice that can take away a person’s sins. The sacrifice is the Lamb of God, the only one who lived a sinless life. If you can really believe that your sin was placed upon him the day of His death, that when He died, your sin died with it, and that when He was buried, your sinful life was buried, and when He was resurrected, you also were raised again to walk in a newness of life—if you can believe all this, then you can receive into your body (temple) that same Spirit and power that raised Him from the dead. It takes belief, faith.

If you ask Him, He will give you a portion, an earnest, a down payment of His Spirit. And that Spirit will come into you to replace that old spirit and will grow like a tiny seed in a large garden. You must water it with your prayers and feed it with your study. And that little portion of His Spirit will grow up into a full-fledged son and daughter of the Spirit who will someday be transformed in a twinkling of an eye and will be changed when immortality will come down out of heaven to swallow up that which can die.

For without God’s Spirit dwelling within us, we are only a member of the walking dead who spend a few nightly whispers with loved ones and then bury their dead and wait to be buried in turn. Without that entity, the Spirit of God, that makes alive whatever it touches and lives in, we are just as good as dead. Without His Spirit, if we are walking around, we do it on borrowed air in an incredibly delicate and fragile shell. And our shell will in a few moments, comparatively speaking, go back to dust from where it came, and our brief stint at self-glory here on earth will not be remembered anymore. Every thing that man says and does without the Spirit of God is vain and of no profit in the final analysis.

We may not realize it yet, but we are blessed, for we have seen that our old self needs to go. Many try to redirect or re-channel its activities. Sometimes we try to clean it up, but He wants it to die.

He said to repent and be baptized in water. Yes, water baptism is a symbol of something else, yet we should still do it. But few know what the real baptism is. Or don’t you know that all of us who were baptized into Messiah Yahshua were baptized into His death? We were therefore buried with him through baptism into death in order that, just as Messiah was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, we too may live a new life. Rom. 6:3-4. NIV.

Going down into the water is a symbol of the mortal life we now live in this flesh. Coming up out of the water is a symbol of the new spirit-being life we shall live, which is the immortal life that we are called to.

Water is a symbol of our mortality. Our first physical birth is an immersion in a bag of water. We are born of water. We mortals are about 75% water. We begin in our mother’s womb in water. During water baptism we are baptized into His death. To live in this mortal body is to die. This watery entombment we call a body is really a deathtrap. It by its very nature has to die. The Messiah’s earthly body was composed of the same watery stuff that our bodies are. And He died. He had to die by reason of the nature of his shell during His earthly tenure. This watery, flesh and blood body cannot inherit immortality and go into the kingdom of the Eternal One. To be made of water is to be mortal, to be awaiting death, for water is extremely unstable, subject to every whim of nature’s forces.

To sin is to die. Mortality is to be able to die. Therefore, our mortality is to sin. Sinning insures a human of not receiving a new spiritual heavenly body. But now He has enabled us to live a life where we do not have to sin, if we receive His Spirit. “Walk in the Spirit, and you shall not fulfill the lust (desires) of the flesh (this old mortal body)” Gal. 5:16 NKJV.

He was made to be sin for us

We, then, when we go under in water, are symbolically being immersed into this watery mortal state of sin with Him. We “are buried with him by baptism into death.” Rom.6:4. God calls those things that are not, as though they were. We are dead already (Yahshua told the disciples, “Let the dead bury their dead”). He calls it before its actual physical death when we consent to and experience it (in revelation). The water is the symbol of our earthly mortal bodily state. This spiritual death of our old self comes now in this revelation before the fruit of death comes to our earthly bodies.

In conjunction with this, few know that the Messiah, the day of His death, actually became sin for us—he who had never sinned. He was the sacrificial Lamb who was set to be sacrificed before the world ever came into existence. God made Him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God. II Cor. 5:21. NIV. And all that dwell upon the earth shall worship him, whose names are not written in the book of life of the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world. Rev. 13: 8.

The levitical priest, in types and shadows, laid his hands on the sacrificial goat, thereby transferring Israel’s sins upon it. So did the Father place all of mankind’s sins upon the body of Messiah. When He died, the body of sin died; our sin died that day. To whom is the arm of Yahweh revealed?…Yahweh has laid on him the iniquity of us all…It pleased Yahweh to bruise him; he hath put him to grief: when thou shalt make his soul an offering for sin, he shall see His seed. Isa. 53:1,6,10.

We make the Lamb’s soul an offering for our own sins by realizing that it was us in our sinful state hanging on the tree that day. We must be immersed in this knowledge. We must believe that our old self—that old monkey on our back, that old demon that we were, that selfish, egotistical, self-absorbed, sorry excuse for a human being—that old thing that we were is now, in God’s eyes dead. Knowing this, that our old man is crucified with him, that the body of sin might be destroyed, that henceforth we should not serve sin. For he that is dead is freed from sin. Rom. 6: 6. [I invite you to read my whole book and make comments. God is calling out His elect (chosen) sons to be manifested in our time.

Part of putting our old carnal self to death is the “laying down our lives” for each other. We are exhorted to present our bodies a living sacrifice. Living for others now replaces our old selfish existence. This shows that we are His children, for that is the same thing that He does. And each seed bears its own kind. This puts us into the Father’s love.

And, oh, to be loved by the Father! Not the general love that the Supreme Being loves His creation with, but to be loved personally by Him. To be treated special, like a doting father treats his firstborn child. To have that special relationship with Him, to have that special time with Him when He shares His secrets with us concerning just who He really is.

Yahshua, Yahweh-in-human-form, is called the Son of God. He said in John 14:21 that the person who has His commandments and keeps them, that is the person who loves the Son. And the Father, who lives in the Son, loves the person who loves the Son. The Father will love that person who shows that they love the Son by keeping the Son’s commandments.

Back in John 13:34, Yahshua gave us a new commandment. We are to love one another as He has loved us. “Greater love has no man than this than to lay down his life for his friends.” His new commandment then is for us to love each other. But, how? By giving up our lives for each other.

Now there are times in life where the physical fulfillment of that commandment would be in order. Yahshua Himself gave up His physical life for all of us. It was entirely necessary for Him to do so, to

fulfill the role of our Saviour. Many times, too, men on the battlefield have laid down their lives in order to save their comrades. If an intruder in the house accosts the family, parents will naturally shield the children from harm, putting their lives in danger.

But, on another level, His word about love—that there is no greater love than to give up one’s life for another—should be taken on the spiritual level, for He will have obedience and not physical sacrifice. He did say that the words He spoke are spirit and they are life. We are to take them on a spiritual level—a level that is the source of motivation for the body.

But how do we lay down our lives for others? He says, Let a man deny himself, take up his cross, and do what I’m doing. Let his old self die with its old fleshly desires and take on the Spirit of the Messiah and walk in the way of giving unto others and not getting for self.

This is the very key that will unlock the doors to our hearts so that the Spirit can enter into us and make us His home.

Verse 21: “He that has my commandments, and keeps them, he it is that loves me: and he that loves me shall be loved of my Father, and I will love him, and will manifest (make known) myself to him.”

Then one of the disciples, Judas, not Iscariot, asked him in verse 22 how He was going to make Himself known to us and not to the whole world. And He answered, “If a man love me, he will keep my words; and my Father will love him, and we will come unto him, and make our abode with him.” He was telling him that the Father and Son would come in the form of the Spirit to dwell within us.

And it is to them who obey the new commandment that the Spirit will come and abide and live within them. They are the ones that will move His heart and energize His Spirit to enter into their hearts.

For His Spirit is the action of self-sacrifice for others. Obeying His “new commandment” is how men will know that we are His disciples—“if we have love one to another.”

How do we do it? How do we let the old self die? We reckon it done by faith/belief. How do we start walking in a brand new God-given life? We reckon it done by faith. Reckon ye also yourselves to be dead indeed unto sin, but alive unto God through Yahshua Messiah our Master. Rom. 6:11.

We’ve got to reckon it done! The word “reckon” is #3049 in Strong’s. It means “to account it, to count it as such.”

God wants us to reckon it so, but He does it first! When we turn to Him, then He counts us righteous in His eyes even in our imperfect state. This is the way our Creator is. This is part of His nature—faith, belief. In fact, faith is the foundation of Yahweh’s divine nature, for we are admonished to be “partakers of the divine nature” by adding to the faith once delivered by Yah to his set-apart ones, virtue, and to virtue knowledge, on through agape-charity-love, the very essence of Him. But His nature starts with Faith. It is His nature to “call those things that do not exist as though they did.” Rom. 4:17, NKJV. If He is this positive, then He would want His children to be the same.

He wants us to follow in His footsteps! God “accounted” righteousness to Abraham because of his belief—before Abraham was righteous! “Accounted” here is the same word as the one translated “reckon.” We are commanded to RECKON some things done. Now we have to reckon our sinful self gone—by belief—as though it were already done—for that is how Yah looks at it! By belief! Reckon it done through Him and His faith. He said it. Let it be done. For what saith the scripture? Abraham believed God, and it was counted unto him for righteousness. Rom. 4:3. Yahweh imputed, reckoned to Abraham the ability to live in a upright manner, keeping Yahweh’s laws and not sinning, by just believing that Yahweh had done it! We make it so hard through our hard heart of unbelief. He is looking for childlike faith, the belief of a small child. All we have to do is just believe that Yahweh has provided a way for us to actually put the old life to death and start living a new life in Him.

But the main reason that many do not want this is because they do not want to give up their old lives. Yah has provided everything for us to get the sin out of our lives, to clean out the temple so that He can take up His rightful abode. But people want to keep sinning and still be the people of God. They may claim it in words, but it is in words only and not in reality as far as Yahweh is concerned.

God must be getting tired of hearing how powerful sin is in our lives. I know that He wants to hear out of our mouths how great the power of Yahweh is—powerful enough to keep us from sinning. We must quit glorifying sin!

Do we think that Yah is pleased to hear our unbelief when we say, “I sin everyday. We all sin every day. We can’t live without sinning.” Oh, we are so quick to say that, almost as if it were an excuse that He would accept.

That’s like saying that the giants are too big; we can’t take the land. Is the giant Sin too much for us, or are we going to believe that Yahweh in us can slay that giant Sin in our life? Let not sin reign in your mortal body, that you should obey it in the lusts thereof….For sin shall not have dominion over you. Rom 6:12-14. We’ve got to reckonour old man, our old self, our old nature dead to sin in the same way that Yahweh reckoned or credited righteousness unto Abraham because of his belief in the promises. Are we going to stagger at the promise that we can live a righteous life now?

But someone will say, “But we just can’t live without sin.” Yah knows that we can’t on our own strength. The question is, “Where is God in that statement?” What happened to, “I can do all things through Messiah Yahshua that strengthens me…” What about, “And nothing shall be impossible to you.” Nothing.Which is to say in reality, “Anything is possible. With God all things are possible.” All things means with His help even living without sin. Where’s our belief in His promises?

We Can by God’s Grace

Paul believed that we should live in a righteous manner before God right now. For the grace of God that brings salvation has appeared to all men. It teaches us to say “No” to ungodliness and worldly passions, and to live self-controlled, upright and godly lives in this present age. Titus 2:11, NIV.

Some have used God’s granting of grace as a possibility to keep on sinning and still get forgiveness. Shall we go on sinning so that grace may increase. By no means! We died to sin: how can we live in it any longer? Rom. 6:1, NIV. On the other side of the fence, some practically throw out God’s grace in reckoning righteousness to us by believing Him because of the “cheap grace” people. The second group believe that we have to really work at this thing; we have to keep the laws and ordinances. This is true, but it is no longer “I” that lives, but Messiah’s Spirit that lives in me! He helps me to keep His laws—by His Spirit! The sad part is that both of the above camps still are in sin.

Where is our belief, our faith that overcomes the world? “My grace/favor is sufficient for you,” Yahshua said. My favor is all you need. That’s how important it is. Him choosing us out of the dunghill before the world ever was, writing our names down before we were ever born—that’s all we need.

Don’t say with a sad countenance, “I hope my name is written down in His book on that day.” Where’s the word of faith that Paul preached in that? Where’s the confidence we have with Him? Speak the word! That kind of timidity reveals a lack of belief that your name is there.

It is very near us, even in our mouths! Say it! Speak it into existence! Be like Him! Reckon it done! Count it as such in our own lives. Which takes more faith? Him counting us righteous or us reckoning our old man dead unto sin? For we know that our old self was crucified with him so that the body of sin might be done away with…Rom. 6: 6, NIV. Instead of all the unbelief in His love to us, we need to thank Him for the absolute abundance of mercy and favor He has smiled down on our undeserving heads, and the power to bring forth fruit worthy of repentance.

Get off of this “we can’t do anything.” It is He that works in us! When are we going to get out of the way and let Him work in us? As long as we think it is ourselves either doing or not doing whatever, then He can’t do the job in and through us. We must decrease to nothing; He then will increase in us.

We will show our belief (faith) by what we do. We will believe Him for His Spirit, to do His laws and statutes. We are not going to impress Him, however, by doing “good Christian deeds” as if they were our duty while we still harbor doubts as to His ability to raise us up to walk in a newness of life—doubts as to the efficacy of His love and mercy and grace/favor towards us. He loves us. Loose Him and let Him go on out of the tomb of our bodies and unbind Him (the Spirit). Let him arise in our hearts, and let(we must reckon it so) the light so shine.

God who has “commanded the light to shine out of darkness, hath shined in our hearts…” (For what purpose?) “…to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Yahshua Messiah.” 2Cor 4:6.

To keep us humble now for a season, Yah has us having the Spirit, Himself, the treasure, in these old earthly bodies, that we may know that it is Him and not us that does anythinggood in and through us.

Christ’s Life in Us–Now

2Cor 4:10–Always carrying with us the fact of the Savior’s earthly sacrificial death (since He died for our sins, now we die, following His example) “that the life also of Yahshua might be made manifest in our body.” The life of the Savior may be made known to the world in our earthly body. (Now someone will say, limiting Elohim and giving glory somewhere else, “Yes, He will make known His life when He gives us our spirit body at the resurrection.” One problem with that statement; that is not what it says! Go to verse 11. “For we which live (present tense–time is right now) are alway delivered unto death for Yahshua’s sake, that the life also of Yahshuamight be made manifest IN OUR MORTAL FLESH.”

There. “In our mortal flesh.” You and I are mortal, and the apostle is telling us that it is possible for us to make known Yahshua’s life in our bodies. And His life does not include sinning.

One thing, though, is guaranteed; if you say today in your heart or out of your mouth, “I can’t show forth His life in my mortal body of flesh, then you will not! And you’ll go down as a “nay-sayer,” but all the promises of Yah are “yea.” Yes. Yes. Yes. Say it. Speak it into existence. By believing what is already there, reserved in heaven for you. By faith/belief. The giants are not too big. You have just got to reckon it so.

Miracles defy earthly laws. The Spirit of God supersedes all of them. Laws of matter, energy, gravity, and inertia are subject to His every wish. He is not a man that He can be held to earthly expectations. All physical laws that men spend their lifetimes seeking to prove become null and void in the face of the Spirit. Just like earthly man is not subject to the law of God, neither, indeed, can be. For the first man, the earthly man is not spiritual, is not operating in the way, the avenue of the Spirit. Neither is the Spirit limited by earthly laws.

Because the fullness of the Spirit dwelt bodily in Yahshua, He was able to perform miracles that were absolutely impossible with men and their natural, earthly, physical laws. Biologists say that there is a certain molecular structure of every substance. The water molecule is different, say, from the molecule of grape wine. Yahshua is not limited by what man comprehends or says can be done.

With men it was impossible to change water into wine (John 2:1-11). The power of Yah was a mightier thing than mere earthly molecular cell structure. The Word-made-flesh made molecules, and He can change them right here on earth when He wants to because He was before the earth and has power over the earth and the things in it. By this miracle, this changing the water into wine, He made known his glory. And the fruit was that his disciples BELIEVED on him. This kind of power definitely yields belief. And this was a showing forth of His glory.

The glory of God does miracles. The glory of God overcomes death, hell, and the grave. It overcomes all laws of the earth. This is the victory that has overcome the world, even our faith. I John 5:4, NIV.

He said, “And nothing shall be impossible unto you…All things are possible unto him that believes…Believe and doubt not in your heart…” There are so many sayings of the Master about faith overcoming the world and everything in it. Let’s examine a few.

Faith is believing Him, and it pleases God. Faith localizes God. Faith is the evidence that God is true and real—that the invisible God is present with power to do his works here on the earth. Faith will have works to prove that God is real.

“Why could not we cast him out?”

The disciples were unable to cast out a devil that was vexing a child who had fallen into the fire. The Master then came and cast the devil out. Later they asked Him why they could not cast it out. Yahshua told them that it was because of only one reason: unbelief. He had rebuked with words the devil in the child, and it had come out. Again, it was the power of the spoken word of faith that did it. Unbelief hindered them from doing the work.

These disciples were no greater than any of us, and He told them, “If you have faith as a grain of mustard seed, you shall say unto this mountain, Remove hence to yonder place; and it shall remove; and nothing shall be impossible unto you.”

In other words, He was saying that a tiny speck of heavenly faith is more powerful than an earthly mountain. It is a heavenly faith, for it originated from heaven. And that heavenly faith is spiritual. When we believe, we are doing what God did, what the Spirit did in the beginning. Yahweh had faith and assurance in His own Word and that things would go right.

When we exercise faith, when we say, “Yes, I believe God is hearing me this instant and is answering my prayers,” when we believe His promises, then THAT is God’s Spirit within us in action! Faith, the heavenly faith, has then been localized! It is the faith once delivered to the saints!

It is written: “I believed; therefore I have spoken.” With that same spirit of faith we also believe and therefore speak…II Cor. 4:13, NIV.

Paul of Tarsus, who was called and taught literally by the risen Savior, tells us that the spirit of faith is this kind of action. The spirit of faith believes and speaks because of that belief. Speech of the word of God comes after one believes. This is the same Spirit of faith that happened in the beginning. And it comes right out of the mouth of the believer. When we believe, the words like rivers of life-giving waters, will come out of our mouths. All this is what the Spirit does through us which they (at that time before the Day of Pentecost) were to receive, for Spirit was not yet given because Yahshua was not yet glorified.

Faith speaks the word. The Master taught that if we had faith the size of a grain of mustard seed, we would say unto a mountain, Be removed and cast into the sea, AND IT WOULD OBEY YOU! We are to be like God insomuch that we should call those things that be not as though they already were! Do before you get it as you would if you had it. Belief! Faith! Faith knows that God is, without having to see it first.

Faith speaks. The spirit of faith produces words. Say unto this mountain. I’ve wondered in the past about my puny prayer life. I wouldn’t speak to God because I didn’t have enough faith. For the spirit of faith speaks–speaks to God in prayer, speaks to humankind about the One whom we address in prayer, speaks to ourselves in psalms and admonitions. And that is the Spirit of God in action.

What does the Spirit of God do? How do we know if the Spirit of God is present within us? Rivers of living water will flow out of our hearts (this he spake of the Spirit). And how does the Spirit grow within us? It grows when we hear our own self speak about God, and we hear God’s words come through our mouths, and faith comes by hearing and hearing by the word of God—coming, not only through the lips of another, but out of our own mouths. Faith praises God for what He has done, is doing, and will do for us, our families, and mankind. This then is how to add virtue, or power, to our faith, and thereby begin to add the divine nature of God into his temple, his body, us.

The power (virtue) is in the word. The word of faith by the word of His power. He spoke the word and healed them all. “Speak the word only and he shall be healed.” Jesus hadn’t seen that great of faith in Israel. Speak the word! Just say it and doubt not in your heart, and it will be done.

But some man will say, “All this power to do these miraculous great works like Yahshua did and the apostles did was just for their time. There is no indication that we in our dispensation of time can do these mighty deeds like they did.” In John 14:12 Yahshua is speaking: “He that believeth on me, the works that I do shall he do also; and greater works than these shall he do; because I go unto my Father. And whatsoever ye shall ask in my name, that will I do, that the Father may be glorified in the Son. If ye shall ask any thing in my name, I will do it.” Yahshua did not qualify this as to a certain time frame of history. He said, “He that believeth on me…”

“Through their word…”

And to further clarify just who He was referring to, He is still speaking during that same discourse in his prayer of intercession in John 17:20: Neither pray I for these alone, but for them also which shall believe on me through their word… He has included all who come to Him through the witness and words of the disciples. That they all may be one; as you, Father are in me, and I in you, that they also may be one in us: that the world may believe that you have sent me. That He would include the likes of us who have sinned against Him so many times to be at one with Him.

In Matthew l7:14-21 the disciples did not really believe that the devil would come out of the boy. They were not convinced that God would do it. They did not have that assurance that what He had said over them in Mt.10:1 was going to happen: “…he gave them power against unclean spirits, to cast them out, and to heal all manner of sickness and all manner of disease.” They did not trust Him, that what He said would come to pass. They did not trust that the Spirit would meet them there and back them up. They would learn. They did not get this faith to do miracles all in one day. It took time for them to grow up in this belief. Watching them in the book of Acts doing the very miracles that the Master said they would do is faith-building for us. It gives us hope, for He said that we who believe on Him through their word would do the same mighty works.

Make no mistake about it. This journey along the Road to Immortality is a walk of faith/belief. Almost every facet of the walk of faith is tied in scripture to the faith of Abraham. Moses, the prophets, the apostles, and Yahshua Himself—they all mention him and hold him up as our example of what true faith and belief in God should be.

The apostle Paul stresses in many places the importance of Abraham’s example. Paul confirms that his belief in Yah is the absolute cornerstone of the true faith. He brings more light to this faith in Hebrews 11. There is something about his belief system that lifts him above the billions of people who have lived. Abraham had something in his belief system that set him apart in God’s eyes; that something is what we need.

Abraham simply believed Yah’s promises to him. He did not doubt His word. In essence he said, “Okay, my Creator. You said it; I believe it.” And he believed Him when He had promised some extremely difficult things to take in.

First, Yahweh told Abraham to leave his family, his friends, his neighborhood, his city where he was raised, his country—and go into a country far, far away. He could have said, “But I don’t know anything about this country, this land of the Canaanites. They don’t know us. How are we going to make it? How will we survive?” But he did not doubt.

And then Yah told Him, “You shall be a stranger in a strange land dwelling in tents, but I will give that very land to you and your offspring for an everlasting possession and inheritance.” He could have doubted and told his Maker, “I appreciate that, but I’ve got two major problems. How are we going to give it to our children and grandchildren when we don’t even have a son yet? My wife Sara is barren, has never gotten pregnant, and I am too old. We both are way passed the age of having children.” He could have doubted in the impossibility of the situation, but he did not.

Abraham’s faith/belief is counted as righteousness

And this belief Yahweh saw and appreciated, and because of it He counted his belief as being right with Him. Abraham would become righteous in God’s eyes because he just believed Him. And he believed in Yahweh, and He counted it to him for righteousness. Gen. 15:6. And it was through this belief in his word (even though they could not see the fruit yet) that Sarah received strength to conceive, and she, in her nineties, bore Isaac, the son that Yah had promised to them. And Isaac became their miracle child of faith/belief—the son of promise. Isaac was the actual living, breathing proof of their faith walk. He, walking and talking, was the heir and progenitor of future heirs of the promise Yah had made to his father. And they sojourned in the land of Canaan, the land that god had promised to Abraham and his heir Isaac.

Abraham’s faith is tested

And then one day Abraham’s belief was tried and tested. He would be put into the ultimate “catch-22.” After the miracle of belief had brought forth a son out of the coldness and deadness of Sarh’s ancient womb, after loving the precious little Isaac, the one who would carry on the seed line of righteousness in the earth, God would now require the ultimate test of Abraham’s faith. Yahweh would now ask Abraham to sacrifice Isaac unto Himself!

Abraham could have looked at himself as the butt of the biggest cosmic joke of all time. He could have seen this command to kill his son as the bitterest twist of fate, the cruelest irony ever imposed upon a man. Or he could have imagined that this request of Yah was not God at all, but rather the voice of the enemy Satan disguised as Yah’s voice. “After all,” Abraham could have reasoned, “Yahweh would not want me to kill Isaac. He’s the one that promised him to us and made it happen. It is the devil who seeks to kill and destroy.” Abraham could have leaned to his own understanding.

He could have argued with Yahweh and said, “Please, I don’t get it. I believed You to leave my country and to come into a strange hostile land. I believed Your promises about how You would give this land to me and my heirs. I believed You for the miracle of Isaac’s birth. And now You want him to die? Your word is at stake here, Master. If I obey You and kill him, then I will not have an heir to inherit the land that You promised to me. Surely You don’t mean for me to take Isaac’s life! That would block you own plan from coming to pass! You are the one who said it, who promised it! You can’t mean this!” If there had been any shred of doubt about Yahweh in his heart, then he surely would have harbored thoughts similar to these.

Doubting did not deliver him from his dilemma

This was a great dilemma. But doubting His word does not deliver us from our dilemmas. Faith does.How? Instead of doubting, Abraham said in his heart, “Although heartbreaking, I am going to obey Him, for I know that He will raise Isaac from the dead. For Yah has already promised that it will be in Isaac that my seed will be called. So Yah has to raise him from the dead. I may not fully comprehend His purpose in all of this, but I don’t have to. He has a reason why He is having me sacrifice Isaac. But I know that He will raise him from the dead, for His word is good and cannot be broken. Isaac will be my heir, and if he dies by the edge of my blade, then God will raise him from the dead!”

So we see that Abraham believed in the ultimate thing that anyone can believe in: the resurrection. That is the faith/belief of our father Abraham. His trust in God was so complete that he knew without a doubt that if Yahweh wanted Isaac dead at that particular point in time for some reason, then He would raise him up. That is the faith that pleases Yah. And through this kind of faith/belief Yahweh will count us right with Him along with our father of the faith, Abraham.

It was ultimately Abraham’s belief in the Savior’s resurrection that anchored his walk with Yah-Is-Savior. Yahshua said as much about Abraham, honoring his faith in Him. And Abraham rejoiced to see my day; and he saw it, and was glad…Before Abraham was, I am. John 8:56-58.

We, as followers of the true God, are likened in scripture as part of the bread of life. He is, of course, the bread of life. But we need to realize that when we come into His body, we become part of His body and therefore are that bread of life, too. It is here that we, however, must take heed as to how we carry on as a member of His body.

We are admonished to purge out the old leaven. The leaven is that part of the bread that puffs up the bread. All the way through, God’s people are told of the importance of unleavened bread. So we are to get rid of the old leaven in our lives. Old leaven is “malice and wickedness.” It is old false teachings and erroneous concepts. It is the clinging to false doctrines concerning Yahweh’s true faith.

Why can’t we walk easily in the true path? It is because of all of the old attitudes of pride and arrogance. And this attitude will rob us of power with Him to walk the walk of His true disciple—to walk the way the prophets and apostles of old walked with Him.

Yahweh promised the same kind of power to us that He gave to His early disciples. Why can’t we have that kind of power? Why isn’t someone doing what the early apostles and the prophets did? Since God is the “same yesterday, today, and forever,” why isn’t someone showing forth His power in a reality in the earth today?

Paul addressed this issue in his first letter to the Corinthians. In the first chapter, He exhorts them to “all speak the same thing, and that there be no divisions among you.” They were to have the same mind and the same judgement. He goes on to say that there were contentions there. Proverbs declare, “Only by pride comes contentions.” Since a kingdom divided against itself cannot stand, the Corinthians did not have any power of God or with God. They had fallen into different camps. They were choosing up sides, as if there were two or three opposing sides in God (“I am of Paul; I am of Apollos; I am of Cephas; I am of Christ; I am a Baptist; I am a Methodist; I am Pentecostal, ad nauseam). Paul in v. 10 was admonishing them that they make their minds be conformed to God’s mind, the mind of the Messiah, Yahshua.

He goes on in chapter 1 to say that the body of the Messiah, the church, the assembly, is not divided. Then in v.17 he says that the preaching of the gospel is not done in the wisdom of man’s words. This is what will make the stauros, the stake, of none effect. The stauros in Greek is important in that it is a symbol of death—the death of one’s ego, one’s old self, one’s Adamic carnal nature (Romans 6). Many zero in on the fact that the instrument of death was the stake and not the cross. This is true. But, if we have not experienced the death of our old selves by identifying our old man Adam, our old nature with the Messiah, who was made to be sin for us, then it really doesn’t matter. The major point is that our old life has been put to death along with the Lamb of God, and by faith in the operation of the Father, we are raised to walk in a newness of life.

“For the preaching of the” instrument of the death of self “is to them that perish foolishness; but unto us which are saved it is the power of God. Yah’s power is found in our deliberate acknow- ledgement that our old life is dead and that our new spiritual life is hid with the Spirit of the Father. “For it is written, I will destroy the wisdom of the wise, and will bring to nothing the understanding of the prudent.”

What exactly is the “wisdom of the wise” of this world? Wisdom is being in awe of Yahweh. Wisdom of this world is being in awe of our own power or in the power of other men. “Has not God made foolish the wisdom of this world.” Men of this world rely on their own strength; this is called the “pride of life.” He who carries the bigger stick is the most powerful; the country that has the biggest bombs is the most powerful. But it is not so in Yahweh. The power of Yah is unleashed when we are weak in our own strength. “I can of my own self do nothing,” said Yah-in-human-form, our example. “For you see your calling, brethren, how that not many wise men after the flesh, not many mighty, not many noble are called (1:26).” Why? Why aren’t many rich men, mighty men and the nobility called into His kingdom? Because they will have a terrible time not relying on their own strength and power and money. They will have a difficult time letting their old self and pride and ego die out to depend on the Spirit of the risen Savior.

We are the weak things that will confound the mighty

“But God has chosen the foolish things of the world to confound the wise; and God has chosen the weak things of the world to confound the things which are mighty…(1:27).” God has chosen us humans who know that we are weak and have voluntarily laid down our lives; we allow Him in the form of His Spirit to come into us to lead us and guide us. Weak are the mortal ones who know that their life is but a vapor that will soon be swallowed up by the various gases encompassing the earth. We weak know that without Him we can do nothing. We weak know that without His resurrection power coming soon for us in this state, we are nothing and have no hope in this life. Yes, we are the weak and have no power in this world system. But God has chosen us, the weak, to confound the mighty of this world.

“And the base things of the world, and things which are despised, has God chosen, yea, and things which are not, to bring to nought things that are: that no flesh should glory in his presence (28-29).” He said that He is near to them of a broken spirit and a contrite heart. Breaking our spirit of pride—that will unleash the power! Knowing we are weak and have no real power other than Him, will unleash His power. Knowing that we are but mortals and not glorying in the pride of our little mortal lives in His presence—that will unleash His power!

Oh, how Paul knew! He was struck down on the road to Damascus where he was soon to exercise man’s wisdom and man’s power in hailing followers of Yah-is-Savior into prison and unto death. He was a member of a high Jewish council with man’s system’s power. But Yah struck him down and redeemed him and helped him and revealed unto him the truths that he later shared with the Corinthians. And so he could say, “That, according as it is written, He that glories, let him glory in Yahweh (1 Cor. 1:31, quoted from Jer. 9:24).”

So, part of the old leaven, or things that we need to get rid of in our lives, is taking pride in the strength of our fleshly existence and not in the Spirit of Yahweh. Being in awe of the strength of fleshly man and not being in awe of the Spirit of Yahweh is some of the old leaven, or untruths—the things that the apostle tells us later in the book has to go. We need to realize (v. 30) that we will get all of our goodness, wisdom and righteousness through His Spirit within us. “Not by might [our might], not by power [our power], but by my Spirit, saith Yahweh.”

The spirit of pride is thinking that it is us doing anything and not Him. It was so bad in the congregation at Corinth that Paul was “determined not to know any thing among” them except Yah-is-Savior and His example of the death of our old selfish nature (I Cor. 2:1). And so he came unto them in weakness and in awe of Yahweh. He did not try to reach them using “enticing words of man’s wisdom, but in the demonstration of the Spirit and of power.” For we now realize that man’s wisdom is the opposite of His power.

The hidden wisdom

He was speaking of a “hidden wisdom,” a wisdom for the mature, the perfect (2:6). It was wisdom that the world could not see nor perceive nor conceive of. It is a secret, a mystery unto all who rely on their own strength. It is the special domain of those who have put to death their ego and vanity on the stake and have renounced the dishonesty of their old lives. Paul was speaking “God’s hidden wisdom, his secret purpose framed from the very beginning to bring us to our full glory. The powers that rule the world have never known it; if they had, they would not have” put to death the Master of glory (2:7-8, NEB).

The rulers of this world system did not know this hidden heavenly wisdom, for they thought that by killing the Messiah, the flesh body, that they would snuff out the Creator. But He has chosen the weak things (the human body) to raise it up, to glorify it. And this is so that the world will realize that the Father in his weakness is stronger and has more power than man at his strongest.

It all boils down to the resurrection power. That is the Father’s ace in the hole and has now become our ace in the hole. Man’s wisdom, with its false doctrines and teachings and concepts and traditions cannot enter this realm, for it is a special realm that is set apart for Yahweh’s purposes. And that is the bringing down of the pride of man and bringing him into one with Him.

The apostle goes on in the letter in the third chapter exhorting them to see the Spirit and not the flesh. “Can you not see that while there is jealousy and strife among you, you are living on the purely human level of your lower nature? When one says, I am Paul’s man, and another, I am for Apollos, are you not all too human? After all, what is Apollos? What is Paul? We are simply God’s agents in bringing you to the faith. Each of us performed the task which the Master allotted to him: I planted the seed, and Apollos watered it; but God made it grow. Thus it is not the gardeners with their planting and watering who count, but God, who makes it grow. Whether they plant or water, they work as a team, though each will get his own pay for his own labor. We are God’s fellow-workers; and you are God’s garden. I Cor. 3:3-9, NEB.

Here again, the apostle is trying to get them to see that it is the Spirit that counts. We are His temple, and if we put ourselves as some great one after the flesh, then we are defiling His temple. We will have put another god, ourselves, in His temple. “If any man defile the temple of God, him shall God destroy (3:17).”

Finally, Paul admonishes them to “purge out the old leaven, that you may be a new lump, as you are unleavened (5:7-8).” The old leaven is malice and wickedness. Unleavened bread is sincerity and truth. Therefore, the old leaven is the insincere false teachings and doctrines that leave the old man in tact and not bring forth the new man with the new Spirit within.

I began my life in God when I was 24 years old. I was hopelessly addicted to drugs at that time in 1971, a drug life that began in Vietnam in 1967. It was a tremendous conversion; my craving for drugs and alcohol literally disappeared overnight. My eight-year addiction tocigarettes vanished.

It was absolutely miraculous! The hand that used to steal, stole no more. The mouth that cursed every other breath, cursed no more. The obvious trappings of my old lifestyle had totally evaporated. And when I looked in the mirror, I knew that what was happening to me was a real experience. God hadreally changed my life.

And so it was only natural that I would think that the ministry and the messenger from whom I had received this life changing light—it would seem that that ministry positively had the truth! Period. For look at me! I’m changed and this ministry is responsible for bringing me here.

The years rocked on—fourteen of them. Children came—a total of five. But as the years passed, things grew strained with the leader and with the flock. And so, things began to fall apart. We were all going through changes, and the sweet fellowship that we had once enjoyed fell by the way side. The ministry that God had used to work such a miraculous deliverance in my life, was now ship- wrecking it.

The ugly, unwanted words “break-up” and “split” and “leaving” was upon many of us, and with it the heartbreak. For I did not want that 14 year phase of my life to end. But it did, prompting a wandering and a seeking for answers as to why it did not last.

Over the course of several years I came up with these thoughts. First, it was our fault—the ministry’s and mine—and not God’s. That is to say, something was wrong fundamentally with the ministry tree. For a good tree cannot bring forth bad fruit. And we were bearing bad fruit—certainly not the peaceable fruit of righteousness. All of us—leader on down—had not gotten it all right. Something was missing. Some doctrinal truth was not there in us. God was right; we were off. If we were in agreement with Him then everything would fall into place and the fruit of the Spirit would flow—the love, joy, peace, longsuffering. But where did the fault lie within us?

After several years I came to the conclusion that it had to be in the teachings—in our concepts of what His writings were teaching us. His doctrine, like His wisdom, is pure and peaceable, without strife. His teachings when followed, produce the fruit of the Spirit—love, joy, peace…

We are to examine ourselves, whether we be in the faith. I was tempted to stand pat doctrinally, to not reprove any of the teachings that had gotten me that far. After leaving the mission, I tenaciously clung to the old teachings, but I began to stagnate.

I knew beyond a shadow of a doubtthat some of the major teachings were solid as a rock: the government of God coming to this earth, the manifestation of the sons of God in the latter days, the identity of the lost sheep of the house of Israel. I began to re-examine everything else to see if it held up. And I began to see that some of the teachings did not pan out. This is an on-going process, of course. This one thing I knew: the organization that I belonged to for so many years did not hold forth solid in the face of trials and tribulation. “If it be a plan of men, it willcome to naught.” “If the fruit don’t bear it out then something is wrong with the tree.” This took some courage to face this.

So I began to reprove all things, which is what scripture is for. I began to open my heart to new truths that I did not receive from the mission. I knew from the bad fruit that we did not have “all truth.” And I knew that “the Spirit of truth would lead us into all truth.” Andsince I knew that I did not through the mission have all truth, I would have to be open to the Spirit to receive more truths that I did not have in the beginning. This is how I came to the knowledge of the sacred names, Yahweh and Yahshua—by being open to them.

And so it goes. Those of us who have had similar experiences must stayopen to truths new to us, for one reason: if we had all the truth before, then why did not our walk and the walk of the church body bring forth the good fruit of unity and harmony? If we say that it is the other person’s fault who left, we imply rigidly that we have the truth and that person should have stayed in line with what I have. If any of us had all the truth that He has for us, we would be winning that brother or that sister. No, something is wrong somewhere. We must stay open for more truth—truth that just may not be our old party line. “If the root of the tree be holy, so are the branches.”

Pride is that state of the human heart that thinks that it knows better than anyone else what is best for itself. Pride prevents one from receiving from another. On the other hand, a total lack of self-esteem leads to gullibility, that state wherein one can be led by every wind of temptation.

And so, humankind caroms between the two taskmasters. Pride prevents us from listening long enough to right teachings and sayings while gullibility opens us up to anything the enemy wants to throw at us.

Our Maker turns His face away from the proud, for they ignore the truth that they do have a Maker and a Counselor on high. And He does not help the foolish and gullible for in their heart they have already accepted everything else. Hard taskmasters, pride and gullibility, but people love to have them rule over them.

Yahshua was lamblasting Capernaum and other cities because of their pride and the unbelief that pride generates. The cities where He had done His most mighty miracles did not repent. The mighty works were done so that men would come to the realization that there is a Supreme Being in heaven who is responsible for the miracles here on earth.

And they who lived there were religious people. They attended services every sabbath and en- deavored to keep the law on their own strength and evidently thought they were pretty good people, so much so that they had no need of a Savior.

Then He says something very curious in verses 25-27. He thanked the Father for hiding the truth from the people who had rejected Him, from the “wise and prudent” in their own eyes, and for revealing the truth to “babes”—those who are not prideful. Then in v. 27 he says that “no man knows the Son (who the Son really is) but the Father; neither knows any man the Father, save the Son, and he to whomsoever the Son will reveal him.” He is the One who reveals who He really is to whoever He desires to.

And then the Master issues this plea to all who are laboring in their own pride and strength: “Come unto me, all ye that labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn of me; for I am meek and lowly in heart; and ye shall find rest unto your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.” Mt. 11:30.

Come to me, He is saying, you who have been trying to do it on your own strength or who have been led around by other people’s thinking. Leave those taskmasters, for they will put you in hard bondage. Come to me and I will give you rest. Come

my way and learn about me, for I am gentle and humble in spirit. I am not a hard taskmaster like pride and gullibility. I’ll help you keep the law; I will take away your sins and guilt. I will help you carry the load, for my burden is light.

We are on our way. Yah-is-Savior is that road to immortality. We have taken our first few steps to get there. We have learned what true wisdom, knowledge and understanding are. These are all key steps for us on our quest to get where He wants us to be.

However, we have not scratched the surface. All of us who are called must, like the knights of old, take up our sword (the Spirit) and arm ourselves with His true knowledge. We must now take full responsibility in finding Him—the Hidden Treasure, the Giver of eternal life.

We now must take Step Eight, which is to keep searching and never give up.

Only the pure in heart will see God. Only the sincere seeker for His sake will attain unto immortality. Only those that truly hunger and thirst after righteousness will be filled. Only those who search diligently, who study incessantly– only those who seek desperately, will find Him.

This small volume is only meant to be a help to get us moving down the Road. It is only intended to prime the spiritual pump and get us started in true wisdom, knowledge, and understanding.

Much more could have been written concerning His true name, His nature, and His purpose, but that is beyond the scope of this book and will have to wait until another day in another volume.

The intent is to sow some seeds of truth—to share the vision of Yahweh reproducing Himself into many immortal ones who will stride this earth just in the nick of time before mankind destroys himself.

The Epilogue speaks of just such a one. Maybe it describes you in that glorious day after Christ sends the manifested sons of God out to the far corners of the earth to help the mortals after the tribulation.

Be quiet, they were saying. The Immortal One is about to speak. Come on. We want to see him. We want to see the man who healed our land and helped us through the end. Sit down in front! We want to see!

And then he appeared at the bottom of the natural amphitheater of grass that led down to a small lake. The crowd fell silent as if that, on cue, all had held their breath. He was not one to be desired on looks alone. He was plain, and one had to strain to distinguish him from the others that lined the edge of the lake. He did not stand out until he spoke. His words resounded over the people: